Known and Unknown - Donald Rumsfeld [28]
He reflected on the weighty responsibility of the American people in our democracy to be involved in helping to guide and direct their government. He said, “For the power, for good or evil, of this American political organization is virtually beyond measurement. The decisions which it makes, the uses to which it devotes its immense resources, the leadership which it provides on moral as well as material questions, all appear likely to determine the fate of the modern world.
“Your days are short here,” he added in closing, “this is the last of your springs. And now in the serenity and quiet of this lovely place, touch the depths of truth, feel the hem. You will go away with old, good friends. Don’t forget when you leave why you came.” Stevenson’s eloquent and inspiring words opened my mind to the need to look squarely and thoughtfully at each new experience, and to know I’d have to answer to myself at each leave-taking.
CHAPTER 4
The Longest of Long Shots
I tended at a still young age to be deliberative when it came to important decisions. I was one who tried to weigh the pros and cons, to look at things from different points of view, and then to make a careful choice. A woman can have a wonderful way of changing all that.
Upon graduating from college, I was ready for the Navy. Having been entranced with the idea of flying at an early age, I requested and was assigned to the naval flight school in Pensacola, Florida. Since there were no female students at Princeton in those days, and I studied or worked most of the time, and with little money, I had had practically no dates. So I thought it would be a fine thing to go off to the Navy unattached. But then there was Joyce.
We had kept in touch since high school, and I had seen her briefly on holidays when we both happened to be home. She was attending the University of Colorado and had an active social life there, with many friends and suitors. And my idea of going off to the Navy and hoping Joyce might wait around ran straight up against the news that she was having romances out West. So I invited her to come out to Princeton during her spring vacation and then again for my graduation.
The morning after I arrived back home in Illinois from graduation, while having breakfast with my parents, I thought about my immediate future. On the one hand was the prospect of being a happy bachelor in the Navy, young and unattached. But then a moment of total clarity presented itself. Without discussing it with anyone, I rose from the table. “I’ll be back in a bit,” I told my parents.
I went to find Joyce and asked her to marry me. There was little buildup, little suspense, and at ten o’clock in the morning, it wasn’t very romantic. But it felt right. I didn’t know who was more surprised when I proposed—Joyce, me, or her parents. When she told her folks the news, Joyce’s dad summed up the prevailing mood. “I’ll be damned,” he said, shaking his head.
Getting engaged the day after you got home from college may seem almost quaint now. Even in the 1950s things were starting to change. I Love Lucy hovered at the top of the Nielsen ratings for its six seasons, starting in 1951, but tensions burbled under the surface of Lucy and Ricky’s happy home life. Back then, their interracial relationship was unusual, as was Lucille Ball’s performing while pregnant. The word “pregnant” was not considered appropriate for use on television. The stars themselves divorced when the show ended. Rock and roll was viewed with suspicion by the establishment—Elvis Presley was threatened with arrest for obscenity by the San Diego police if he moved his body during his performances. Marilyn Monroe emerged as a new, modern movie star whose sex appeal and real-life dramas threatened to overshadow her acting. But it would take some years before these changes were brought