Freelancing in Paradise:The Story of Two American Reporters Who Supported Their Family by Covering Turbulent Times in the Caribbean, 1958-1963

By John Hlavacek

After living and working in India during the first years of their marriage, John and Pegge Hlavacek moved their children and Indian nanny to New York when John accepted a fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations. When the fellowship ended, the Hlavaceks moved to Jamaica and supported the family by providing news and photography services to print, radio, and TV.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Hlavacek
• Release date: Jan 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781936840021

John Hlavacek

John and Pegge spent their lives traveling the world reporting as foreign press correspondents. John first taught English in China during the 1930s, after graduating from Carleton College. He then joined the United Press in 1944 as a war correspondent. He met Pegge Parker, a beautiful widowed journalist with an eye toward writing her way around the world. They married, living and working in India during the first years of their marriage.The Hlavaceks were then off to New York and next Jamaica, where John and Pegge supported the family by covering news events across the globe. In 1961, the family moved to Florida when John began work as staff correspondent for NBC in Havana. John and Pegge meticulously chronicled their lives before and after they met—and the stories they brought to us from afar. Today, John resides in Omaha, Nebraska. Pegge passed away in November 2008.

Book preview

The Blue Lagoon—this was the view we saw from the balcony of our beach house at San San, near Port Antonio on the eastern end of Jamaica.

When we first arrived in Jamaica, it was called the Blue Hole. Legend had it that the beautiful, azure Blue Hole, was, in the words of the Jamaican Tourist Board’s publicity, fathomless.

In February of 1959, eight amateur divers of the Jamaica Branch of the British Sub-aqua Club dove to the bottom of the Blue Hole, 175 feet from the surface. I was a member of the Club and wrote about the expedition for the local Kingston newspaper, the Gleaner.

What was it like at the bottom? Jeff Hornby, a young British engineer with the British Electric Company, reported he found old palm trees criss-crossed at the bottom. There were large fissures in the rock, three to four feet square and five feet deep, he added. We saw very little life below 120 feet, except for mussels. And everything at this depth is covered with a fine film.

Phil Harvey, another English engineer, revealed that from the bottom of the Blue Hole running almost to the surface of the sea was a huge pinnacle of rock. The pinnacle sloped up to a point from the north, but the south face was almost vertical. He said, The most remarkable thing about the Blue Hole is the vertical face of the south side of the pinnacle. There are holes like Gothic windows in the rock.

Robin Moore, author of Green Berets and The French Connection, had a house overlooking the Blue Hole to the east. Robin circulated a petition to rename the area Blue Lagoon. He wanted to develop it as a tourist spot by building a small tea house on the little spit of land that separated the Blue Lagoon from the Caribbean.

In later years, Robin Moore did indeed get the name changed and also built a small tea house at the entrance. The Blue Lagoon was special to us because it was there that our kids learned to water ski behind Robin Moore’s boat.

Top two photos: Johnny water skiing behind Robin Moore’s boat; middle photos: Mike (left) and Mary water skiing; bottom photos: Suzy and Jimmy in the water (left) and Suzy water skiing (right).

Author Robin Moore preferred to write while standing up.

A Few Words about Freelancing

What is freelancing? I think the best way to explain what a freelancer does is to compare him or her to a professional golfer. While Pegge and I were not in the stratospheric level of Tiger Woods when we moved to Jamaica, we were in a similar category. Tiger Woods is an independent businessman. He pays for his own transportation, his own health care, his own insurance, and his own vacations.

When we moved to Jamaica, we had no definite salary, no health insurance coverage, no paid vacations, and no employer-paid life insurance policies. We earned money by filing stories—text, photos, and film—but we were paid only if our stories were used.

As stringers for the Time/Life publications, we suggested stories every week. If the editors gave us an assignment for a suggested story, we were paid for our expenses even if the story was not used. If it was printed we got a bigger check. But we were always guaranteed at least some money for each assignment.

For newspapers, if we were asked for a story, we were paid for it, depending on the importance of the story and how many words were printed.

When we began stringing for NBC, we were paid for every radio spot that was used. If we were asked to cover a specific story, we were paid. When we first filmed a news story for NBC, it was submitted on speculation. Only when we had been stringing for a number of months did NBC offer a retainer. Then NBC had first call on our services, but we were free to sell stories to our other strings—McGraw-Hill publications, the New York Daily News, the Toronto Globe and Mail, the Minneapolis Star, the Wisconsin State Journal, the London Daily Express, France Soir in Paris, and the Miami Herald, among others. We also sold our news photos to Magnum, a photo agency with worldwide connections. In addition, we were free to do commercial writing and filming for publicity and promotion.

Preface

The co-authors of this book are John Hlavacek and Pegge Parker. It should have been written more than forty years ago when we ended our freelancing careers and took regular paying jobs.

Somehow, the time to write a book never seemed to be available during the ’60s or ’70s. We both had jobs, and we still had five children to care for. Also, the communications revolution was still in the future and publishing a book was beyond our expertise. Pegge had written a wonderful manuscript about our first five years of married life in India, Diapers on a Dateline. Despite good literary agents, the book never saw daylight until a few years ago when self-publishing became a reality. It is only now, in retirement, that we have found the time to record our life in the Caribbean.

Also, I am responsible for re-reading our letters and old files to prepare this memoir. We have waited too long because Pegge, like so many persons in their 80s, has succumbed to Alzheimer’s and can no longer remember nor write and edit. But as you read the letters she exchanged with me when we were in different countries, sometimes in different continents, you will be impressed by her brilliant prose. In this memoir I have included many of the stories she wrote at the time, and when you read them you will discover that she was a much better writer than I.

Acknowledgments

Although the bulk of information in this memoir came from letters, newspaper clippings, personal diaries and memos of Pegge’s and mine, this book could not have been published without the help of many friends and colleagues.

Janet Tilden (an alumna of my alma mater, Carleton College), our editor for this and previous memoirs, worked closely with me from the beginning. She added her expertise and wise consulting throughout.

We would like to thank Lisa Pelto of Concierge Marketing for her continued advice and consulting during the writing and publishing of this book and our other memoirs.

Rex Daugherty and Pete Walsh, young friends who are computer literate, were invaluable in printing pictures from my long stored negatives.

Kim Liebsack and Lisa Fideler, at Walgreen’s photo department, worked with loving care to make prints from color slides and black-and-white negatives from my old collection.

Bernard Diederich, a fellow Time stringer in Haiti, with whom we covered stories, lent his expertise and memory for some of our adventures.

Anthony DePalma, the New York Times correspondent who is the author of The Man Who Invented Fidel, helped in finding long-lost colleagues.

We also owe debts of gratitude to the many editors and publishers who took our copy—and paid us handsomely to allow us to enjoy our Paradise: the editors of Time/Life, the McGraw Hill magazines, NBC radio and television, BCINA, Magnum Photos, the New York Daily News, the Miami Herald, the Wisconsin State Journal, the Minneapolis Star/Tribune, the Toronto Globe and Mail, the Daily Express of London and France Soir of Paris.

Finally, we have to acknowledge the help of the Internet—particularly Google and Yahoo.

1

From New Delhi to New York

In 1956, as a United Press correspondent in India, I had never heard of the Council on Foreign Relations. Therefore it was a complete surprise when I received a bid to apply for the Council’s fellowship for an American correspondent. I later learned that the bid was prompted by Carroll Binder, the editor of the Minneapolis Star & Tribune, who had toured the world with his friend, David Winton, a Minnesota businessman. The Minneapolis paper was a United Press client, and Pegge and I had done what we always did for UP clients—tried to make their visit to India pleasant and informative.

In a letter to her parents in October 1956, Pegge described the requirements of the fellowship bid:

John must send 10 samples of his writing and a brief on his education, background, experience and a 500-word definition of how the study fellowship would benefit him in interpreting the news from India. Our UP client is on the board of selectors—so is Edward R. Murrow, the top news commentator. We had people coming to dinner the night this arrived so we didn’t have a chance to discuss it until after midnight … some discussion … pros and cons. John is somewhat worried that UP would not reassign him to India if he got the fellowship and went off for a year. He also hasn’t got in hand 10 impressive clips … stories that might impress the selection board. I think we can dig up his Goa pieces which with his pictures were very good. It is true we have not a single clipping with his byline in hand, on the spot … anyway, the most wonderful part of the whole proposition is the chance to study, the associations which would do no harm at all for future contacts, and for the kids—one whole year in the U.S., good food, schools, American kids, games … O the thousand and one things the U.S. represents to us, from way out here.

On June 19, 1957, Pegge called to let me know that a cable had come in from New York announcing that I had been awarded the fellowship. This announcement would signal the beginning of a new chapter in the life of the Hlavacek family.

Receiving the fellowship meant that we would be able to return to the United States and we would be free of financial worries for at least the next year. We could follow up on our plan to sail from Cochin on July 14 on a ship to Italy and then continue our voyage to New York.

We had been through two months of uncertainty prior to the fellowship announcement. I had been fired in April after 13 years with United Press, and our friends in the Delhi foreign press corps had rallied around to find a job for me. Jim Greenfield, the Time correspondent, tipped us to a story provided we sold it to a newspaper. He told us that Roberto Rossellini, who was in India to direct a film, had fallen in love with the wife of an Indian film producer. As Rossellini was then married to Ingrid Bergman, the story caused a sensation.

Pegge and I worked on the Rossellini story together and sold it as an exclusive to the New York Daily News, a paper with which Pegge had formed close ties during the years when she was a reporter in Alaska and China. The Daily News rewarded us handsomely for our efforts. Pegge had flown down to Bombay earlier for an exclusive interview with Roberto, and then I had followed to wrap up the story. After the story was completed, I flew home to Delhi and the family prepared to leave India.

While we awaited the detailed letter spelling out the provisions of the fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations, Pegge and I decided to make a quick trip to Darjeeling to visit Tenzing Norgay, the Everest climber. I had written Tenzing’s first account of his Everest climb for United Press and then had arranged for James Ramsay Ullman to write Tenzing’s autobiography, Tiger of the Snows. As a result, we had become members of Tenzing’s family. (The complete story is included in Pegge’s book about our first five years of marriage, Diapers on a Dateline.) Tenzing had written us a wonderful letter asking us to come for a visit. We hadn’t seen him for two years, and now that we were preparing to leave India it seemed the right thing to do.

When we returned from Darjeeling, we began the task of packing for our departure. In a letter to my parents, I reported that Pegge has three tailors working in the next room on the children’s clothes. I am getting final papers ready: income tax clearance, police clearance and shipping, train and plane reservations.

The fellowship provided a stipend equal to the current salary of the recipient as well as tuition for a course of study at one of three universities: Columbia in New York, Princeton in New Jersey, or Yale in Connecticut. I decided on Columbia because we planned to live in the New York area where we would be close to the Council to attend the meetings and conferences available with the fellowship.

The next three weeks were a whirlwind of activity. Finally, on the evening of July 8, with a large group of friends gathered at the train station to see us off, we boarded the Indian railway’s Frontier Mail which had, and still has, a famous and storied history, having been featured in the writings of Kipling and others. The journey began with a 26-hour trip into Victoria Station in Bombay. Accompanying the family were two of our loyal servants: Pana, the bearer (butler), and Tai Bhai, our aiha (nanny). The nine of us made quite a gang—the twins, Mike and Mary, were 9, Suzy was 4, John Patrick was 3, and James Matthew was 1.

Upon our arrival in Bombay, our good friends Drs. Piloo and Eddie Bharucha met us at the train station and took us to the Taj Mahal Hotel on Bombay’s harbor overlooking the Gateway to India arch erected during the British colonial period. (Years later, son Mike recalled that he had spent the day spotting the many foreign ships in the harbor.)

The next day, in a driving rainstorm, Pegge and the children and Tai Bhai went by taxi to the Santa Cruz airport where an Indian Airlines DC-3 awaited them for the five-hour flight to Cochin on India’s southern west coast. (Pana, the bearer, and I stayed behind to ship the rest of the heavy baggage by train.) Mike later reported that the flight had been so rough that most of the passengers had been unable to eat their meals. The weather didn’t bother Mike, and to this day he remembers putting away an English breakfast: tea, fish, poached eggs, toast, and marmalade. Since most of the passengers had declined the meal, Mike asked if seconds were available. His request was cheerfully granted.

Upon arrival in Cochin, the family stayed in the Malabar Hotel while awaiting the arrival of the Italian ship, the Sydney, which would take us to Italy. The Malabar Hotel was a wonderful choice for our last few days in India, located right on the Cochin harbor with the garden going all the way down to the waterfront where the children were able to watch the ships coming and going. Pegge was also able to take them for rides on the ferryboats that served as Cochin’s public bus system. Pegge, Tai Bhai, and the children arrived at noon on July 10, and Pana and I joined them two days later. After I arrived we were able to arrange a full day’s excursion through the inner waterways of Trivandrum on a launch powered by an outboard motor. Mike later remembered that the launch had run out of gas and we had paddled the boat near a Caltex Station. We beached the boat and took the outboard motor tank to the gas station to fill it up for our return trip.

After our wonderful weekend at Cochin, on Monday, July 14, we boarded the Italian Flotta Lauro ship, T/S Sydney, for the voyage to Genoa, Italy. We had ten glorious days of sailing across the Indian Ocean and feasting on great food. Years later, the children remembered that blue juice (red wine) was served with every meal except breakfast. Our first landfall was passing the island of Socotra off Africa’s east coast before the ship stopped at Aden for bunkers and provisions. Underway again, the ship entered the Red Sea where the cruising became very hot as our cabins had only porthole scoops for air conditioning. At night our kids slept out on the deck, which they considered a great adventure.

The ship made a short stop at Port Said, and we had a few hours to visit the city before we continued our sailing in the Mediterranean to the island of Malta on July 15. Here we were met by the Harold Flaata family, friends from our New Delhi days, who very kindly served as our guides for a full day of touring. (Much later, after we had moved to Jamaica, son Mike gave a report on our visit to Malta which was so well received that he was asked to speak to other classes.)

Another two days of sailing brought us to Naples, where we spent a day ashore touring the coastal road along the sea to a Roman grotto. After two more days of sailing, we landed in Genoa on July 19. Here we stayed at the Assarotti Hotel, Via Assarotti 42. It was old home week for the family, because Pegge and the children had stayed at the same hotel a few years earlier when the family had a home leave. (That adventure is described in Pegge’s book, Diapers on a Dateline.)

In Genoa we boarded the Italian liner Giulio Cesare (Julius Caesar) for the journey to New York. The ship made a brief stop in Gibraltar (daughter Mary remembers buying a crèche as a Christmas decoration) before heading across the Atlantic for New York.

One of the highlights was seeing Portuguese fishing trawlers off the Grand Banks still fishing in the time-honored tradition. Although it was summer, the weather was for the most part overcast with rough seas. After a week of sailing the ship picked up the Sandy Hook pilot and we sailed past the Statue of Liberty to berth on the West Side at Pier 57, arriving on August 10.

2

Life in White Plains, New York

August 10, 1957—Pegge’s mother and father were waiting at the dock in the New York City harbor as our Italian liner slowly drifted to a landing. Eight of us—Pegge and I, together with our five children and our Indian aiha, Tai Bhai—would spend the next year in the United States.

Pegge’s parents, Martin and Rose Lyons, had taken the train from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to meet us when the ship docked. Earlier we had arranged for Tai Bhai and the three little ones—Suzy, Johnny, and Jimmy—to fly immediately to Chicago to visit the Hlavacek grandparents at their farm in Lemont, Illinois. The rest of us checked into the Hotel Wellington, where Pegge’s aunt, Miss Lotte Kent, was employed (and was able to arrange a favorable rate). One day later, twins Mike and Mary, now 11, took the train from Grand Central Station to Boston to visit their Mackiernan grandparents, who had not seen the twins since their previous visit in 1955. Mike remembers having a pancake breakfast at the Automat cafeteria and riding on the train through Connecticut and Rhode Island. Mike felt very grown up because he was in charge of the tickets.

With the children visiting grandparents, Pegge and I were faced with a myriad of tasks. Most important was finding a place to live in the New York area while the father in the family took classes at Columbia University. We needed a furnished rental house within commuting distance of the city. The fellowship was for the academic year and, unless I found a job in the New York area after the fellowship ended, we would be moving again.

Earlier, as we were making plans to leave India, Melvin Conant, the acting director of the Council on Foreign Relations, had written to me asking if he might begin a search for housing for us. He said he was living in Cold Spring Harbor on the North Shore of Long Island, an hour from the city. He mentioned that the public schools in the area were excellent for children up to the age of 14 years. Then he added, It seems obvious to us that while the announcement of the Fellowship noted ‘the stipend will normally be equivalent to the salary relinquished during the period of the fellowship’—in your case about $7,500—the size of your family and expense of living in New York may make it advisable for us to discuss raising your stipend above that figure. I showed Pegge the letter, saying Imagine—a fellowship that offers to raise the normal stipend. How Hlucky can you get? In a subsequent letter, Conant wrote that the Council was suggesting a stipend of $8,500 for the ten months of the fellowship. (Fifty years later, the equivalent amount would be about $59,500.)

Now began our search for housing. On Friday, August 22, we bought a (used) Chevrolet station wagon, checked out of the Wellington where we had been staying since our arrival on August 10, and moved up to White Plains to the Roger Smith Hotel for the weekend. Pegge and I visited real estate agents in New Jersey, Long Island, and Westchester. To our dismay, we found that no one seemed to be willing to rent a house to a family of eight for a year. In desperation, Pegge and I decided that we would have to buy a home and plan to sell it after the fellowship ended. We decided to look for a house in Westchester, figuring that we could sell it after a year and take only a small loss. With this plan in mind, Pegge met with a real estate lady who would take her for the day while I returned to New York to register for classes at Columbia University.

The real estate lady dropped me off at the White Plains railway station for the trip to Manhattan. Only one other person was waiting on the platform with me, and I asked him if the trains usually came on time. I don’t know, he said. I never take the train. I usually drive into the city. Soon the train arrived and we boarded together. On our way into the city, I talked with my new friend about our life in India and the wonderful fellowship I had received. I mentioned that I had a wife and five children and an Indian aiha, and we were having trouble finding a place to live. He told me that he lived in White Plains and owned an export business in the city. As our train pulled into Grand Central Station, he gave me his business card, which said that he was Paul Kates of Basic Capital Corporation in New York City. Mr. Kates told me, By the way, I have a brother in White Plains who is planning to close up his home and move to Sarasota for health reasons. I don’t know if he will be willing to let you have his house, but here is his address. Please go see him. I promised I would.

I spent most of the day at the Council and the University, registering for my classes. Then I took the train back to White Plains to meet Pegge, who had nothing to report. We had a lead on a home in Mamaroneck, but we found that the home was too small for our large family. I told Pegge about meeting the man on the train and suggested that, as a courtesy, we ought to stop and meet his brother. It was about 8 p.m. when we arrived at Five Hathaway Lane, which turned out to be a beautiful mansion overlooking a golf course. We parked the car and walked up to the door. Opening the door was my friend from the train, who greeted us by saying, Well, we thought you would never come! With that, he took Pegge by the arm and said, Come on, I want to show you this home. Then his brother, George Kates, turned to me and said, Let’s go down to the basement. I want to show you the furnace and laundry.

I was stunned. I looked around at this wonderful four-bedroom, four-bath home with a large backyard, and I told the owner, Mr. Kates, we have looked at homes all over the New York area, in New Jersey and in Long Island. While the Fellowship is generous, I couldn’t possibly afford to rent this home. He replied, Well, how much can you afford? I quickly calculated my budget and gave him a figure. That will be all right! he responded.

Pegge and I could hardly believe our good fortune. Not only did we have a place to live, but Mrs. Beatrice Kates took Pegge aside and said, You have just come from India, and you do not have any winter clothes. Our children have all their jackets and sweaters, but we won’t be needing winter clothes in Florida. Please feel free to use them. And, although we are Jewish, we have all the decorations for the Christmas season and you can use them as well. A week later we moved into Five Hathaway Lane.

Our children were ecstatic. For several years the family had been living in a small suite in a residential hotel in Delhi, and now Mike could have his own room, Mary and Suzy would share another room, and Johnny and Jimmy would share a room with Tai Bhai. Pegge and I had the master bedroom. Not only was the house spacious, but it had a laundry chute large enough for the children to slide down from their floor to the basement. To them, the house was a regular Disneyland. And the back garden had room for a small playground and areas for Pegge to grow her roses.

Neither Pegge nor I were prepared for our life in suburbia. I had been living outside the United States since 1939, having traveled to China immediately after graduating from Carleton College. After being evacuated from China with the twins during the Communist takeover, Pegge had spent only two years (1948– 1950) in California before accepting a position with the American consulate in Pakistan. We had spent the first five years of our marriage (1952–1957) living in India. So it was a new experience for the two of us to have our family of five children, plus our Indian aiha, living in a mansion in a well-to-do area of White Plains.

Our neighbors were wealthy. We couldn’t match their wealth, but we were unique in that we had a minor celebrity status. I had received a prestigious fellowship, Pegge was a well-known newspaper woman, and we had our live-in Indian nanny taking care of the three younger children. We were accepted by our neighbors and soon adapted to our new surroundings. To help us with the preparations, Pegge’s mother came from Harrisburg for a few weeks. After the Labor Day holiday, Mike and Mary began their school year. They were soon busy with after-school activities. Mike joined the Cub Scouts, and Mary joined the Brownies. Pegge became a Cub Scout Den Mother. (Pegge’s calendar records many Brownie and Cub Scout meetings.)

Having grown up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Pegge had never driven a car. With the ready availability of taxis in Washington and Alaska and chauffeurs in China and India, she had not needed to learn how to drive. But now that we were living in suburbia, Pegge wanted to be able to drive so she could take her turn at car pooling. She began taking driving lessons and soon got her license.

Living in more spacious accommodations meant that we were able to host friends for weekend visits. One weekend in particular was notable. On October 5–7, we welcomed friends from India who were now stationed in Washington, DC: Herb and Helen Gordon and Ed and Lois O’Neill and their children. Both the Gordons and the O’Neills had been attached to the American Embassy in New Delhi. We were having dinner when we were surprised by the news of the Soviet Sputnik launch. We went outside to watch for the tiny spot in the sky as the Sputnik circled the earth. We decided to telephone Athelston Spilhous, who had been to New Delhi the year before for the International Geophysical Year sponsored by the United Nations. We had met him at cocktail parties given by the American Embassy, and Pegge had persuaded him to come to Mike’s school and give a lecture about the budding space program. We parents had visited the school to watch as he demonstrated to the students how the rocket would be powered in three stages and would then circle the earth in space at a speed great enough to keep it in orbit. When we called Spilhous at his home in Minneapolis, his first words were The bastards! He explained that the Russians, who were part of the UN-sponsored program, were supposed to let other countries know what they were doing. But the Russians had kept their program secret and, of course, it was a wake-up call for the American space program. It was not until a few years later that the U.S. finally had vehicles in space and sent men to the moon. Ever since that time, we have been ahead of the Russians and later we cooperated with them in manning the space station.

We found friends from our India days living near us in White Plains. On the other side of the golf club were David and Carol Guyer and their daughter Cynthia. David had been with the Peace Corps and Carol was the youngest daughter of James Cash Penney, founder of the JC Penney department store chain. Also we found Martin and Billy Foley, friends from Bombay. Marty was a godfather to Suzanne at her christening. And we had several joyous meetings with Paul and Mimi Grimes. Paul had been with the information office of the Bombay Consulate and was now a reporter for The New York Times.

During our time in White Plains, we continued our contacts with the editors of the New York Daily News. Pegge had been a contributing reporter for the News ever since her Alaska days. She had become a good friend, by long distance, of their Sunday editor, Mrs. Ama Barker. (When Pegge first sailed for China, she arrived in Shanghai and was shocked to discover how much she would have to pay for a room. She cabled Ama for money, and the Daily News had sent $400. However, before the money arrived, Pegge had found a job with the American Army’s Graves Registration Unit and promptly sent the money back. Whenever we appeared in the newsroom of the Daily News, the reporters would always remark, That’s the crazy broad who sent the money back!) Pegge had kept in touch with the News while we lived in India. Just before leaving we had sent the News the exclusive story of the Rosselini affair, for which we were paid handsomely. During our time in White Plains we had several lunches with Ama and with Hugh Schuck, the editor of the daily paper. The Daily News, the paper that reads faster and livelier, was very good to us. In November the News gave us two orchestra seats to see My Fair Lady, which was the most popular show on Broadway (making it almost impossible to get tickets). The News also supplied two press passes so I could take Mary to the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden.

As we approached the Christmas season, Pegge took Tai Bhai into the city to see the window displays. Tai Bhai, in her colorful sari, would turn heads. And Tai Bhai could not get over New York City. She would exclaim to Pegge, Memsahib, how clean, how clean! Tai Bhai’s favorite section of Macy’s was the toy department, where she enjoyed buying presents for her children. In White Plains, Tai Bhai was in great demand. She was asked to come to school and to talk to the students. Pegge would always go with her and report back to me the interested questions from the youngsters.

All the children had Christmas parties, and Pegge and I attended a black-tie Christmas dance at the Council. We had a joyous Christmas and New Year’s at our mansion. Pegge’s parents came from Harrisburg to join us for the holidays.

Immediately after New Year’s Day, I took all five children to my parents’ 80acre farm in Lemont, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. After a few days, the twins and I returned to White Plains while Tai Bhai and the three little ones stayed with my parents for another month.

On March 13 we had a party to celebrate my fortieth birthday. During a long weekend in March the family took a trip to Washington. Pegge drove about half the time. We stayed with friends from Delhi, Herbert and Helen Gordon. I made the rounds of government and newspaper offices looking for a possible job after the fellowship.

During our long weekend trip, I was able to see two of my former United Press colleagues, Stewart Hensley and Bob Branson. On Saturday morning we took Tai Bhai and the kids to see the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, and the Capitol. We took a ride on the subway from the Capitol to the Senate office building and stopped to see Senator John Sherman Cooper. (Senator Cooper had been the American Ambassador in New Delhi during our time there). Tai Bhai was thrilled to visit the Senator, and his staff treated her well. The Senator gave Tai Bhai an autographed picture of himself with Prime Minister Nehru. Later that afternoon we had tea with Senator Cooper and his wife. Mrs. Lorraine Cooper had been very good to us in Delhi. And that evening we visited with Colonel Chandler Estes and his wife Peggy. The Estes had been good friends of ours in Delhi, where he was the Air Attaché to the American Embassy. (The Estes had taken care of young John Patrick for two weeks while I worked and Pegge and the others sailed from India to Italy on our home leave in 1955. Later, I flew to Italy with one-year-old Johnny to catch up with the rest of the family.) The Estes were interested to see how big young John had grown and, of course, they had never seen Jimmy.

Clockwise from upper left: The house at Five Hathaway Lane, White Plains; Mike and Suzy roasting marshmallows at the backyard barbeque; Tai Bhai visiting the elementary school in White Plains and posing for art students; picnic at the Franklins’ home in Oyster Bay.

3

The Year at the Council

The Headquarters of the Council on Foreign Relations was on 58th Street just off Park Avenue. I well remember the first time I entered the office to introduce myself. The wonderful secretary took a look at my résumé and noted that I had listed my stipend with the United Press as $7,500 per year. With a look of concern, she said, Oh, dear! You won’t be able to live on that in New York. We’ll have to give you more money. And they did. As Melvin Conant had suggested earlier, my stipend for the ten months of the fellowship was raised to $8,500. (In 2002, the stipend for the ten-month fellowship was an amount not to exceed $65,000.) In addition to the stipend, the fellowship paid the tuition for my classes at Columbia University’s Russian Institute as well as private lessons in the Russian language with a tutor. And most important, the fellowship provided an office for me and gave me the privilege of attending all meetings and study groups sponsored by the Council during my academic year. I found that by attending the meetings and study groups at the Council, I was getting a double education in history, government, finance and business, and political science.

The origins and purpose of the Council on Foreign Relations are described in the following two paragraphs from the Council’s Annual Report for July 1, 1993–June 30, 1994:

The Council on Foreign Relations was founded in 1921 shortly after the end of World War I. Several of the American participants in the Paris Peace Conference decided that it was time for more private American citizens to become familiar with the increasing international responsibilities and obligations of the United States. This decision led to the creation of an organization dedicated to the continuous study of US foreign policy for the benefit of both its members and a wide audience of interested Americans.

The Council on Foreign Relations is a nonprofit and nonpartisan membership organization dedicated to improving the understanding of US foreign policy and international affairs through the exchange of ideas.

The Council has been the subject of criticism over the years. One such is from the publication The New World Order by Pat Robertson. It reads, The august body of ‘wise men’ has effectively dominated the making of foreign policy by the United States government since before World War II. The CFR has included virtually every key national security and foreign policy advisor of this nation for the past seventy years. Out of some twenty-nine hundred members, at least five hundred are very powerful, another five hundred are from centers of influence, and the rest are influential in academia, the media, business and finance, the military or government.

Based on my experience at the Council, I can attest to the fact that many of its members are truly wise men. I deemed it a great privilege to be able to meet and listen to them.

The fellowship was established in 1949 with funds from the Carnegie Corporation. (In 1965 the fellowship was renamed The Edward R. Murrow Fellowship, and funding was provided by the CBS Foundation.)

There had been 15 press fellows before I was named in 1957. I had known many of these men. Robert Clurman was a United Press correspondent in India and Singapore, and he had worked for me briefly in Calcutta in 1945. Henry Lieberman came from The New York Times, and Pegge had known him in China. William (Bill) Boyle, a fellow in 1950–51, was also from United Press, and I had known him for his work in London. David Richardson, a fellow in 1953–54, was also known to me, as he had been a Time/Life correspondent when we both worked for Time. And John Rich, a fellow in 1954–55, was an NBC correspondent in Asia.

I began attending my classes at Columbia in mid-September. Going back to school after 18 years was an interesting experience for me. Pegge kidded me about being a college boy again at age