What does being presidential mean?

 

I have witnessed the public behavior of a number of previous US presidents and have acquired an informal understanding of what it means to be presidential. The current ex-president does not seem to fit easily into my understanding of being presidential.

So, I started thinking about presidents in other contexts … presidents of a congregation, of an enterprise, of a university, of a professional organization, and so on. I also have some experience with some of those kinds of presidents. My father was president of our congregation in Oak Ridge, Tennessee prior to becoming an ordained Rabbi. I wrote the president of IBM when I worked at the SDD Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado expressing my disagreements with the war in Vietnam and hoping IBM would also express similar disagreement, and he wrote back in agreement. Surprising. I posted his response on my office cubicle bulletin board, which bothered at least one of my co-workers who complained to my supervisor. My university president is also a model of presidential behavior and walks a thin line between Texas politics and maintaining a humanistic campus. I have heard a previous CEO of a political organization express strong disagreement but always in a civil and reasonable tone. None of those persons ever used nasty language nor did I ever hear any of them curse at anyone or anything. Oh yes … I have to admit to having been the president of a professional organization and I have expressed strong discontent publicly while in that role but without cursing or personally attacking anyone.

It seems reasonable to expect the president and ex-presidents of our country to act presidential at all times, especially in public. One ex-president fails to meet my expectations of presidential behavior … only one. It seems so unusual that so many others do not seem bothered by that person’s public discourse and behavior. Do I need to reconsider what it means to be presidential?

 

Mike Spector

August, 2022

Classified Clearances

 

With all the news on the recent search of #45’s home at Mar-a-Lago and the boxes of documents classified as Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information, I have been recalling my years as an Air Force Intelligence Officer during the Vietnam conflict and the Top Secret SCI clearance that I had. We simply called it a coded clearance and it required a serious background investigation even though I already had a top secret clearance when I arrived at Clark Air Base as a recent graduate of the nine-month Intelligence School at Lowry AFB (now closed). I worked in a secure facility … 12 hour shift work, 3 shifts on and 4 days off … not so bad … lots of time to get into trouble which I managed to do … not on purpose, though. I read many highly classified texts … my job was to summarize and synthesize what I read during my shift to pass along to the high ranking officers the next day. Most or the time it was just the number of people killed although I read about John McCain’s capture and detention in North Vietnam during my tenure. I vaguely recall there being levels of TS SCI clearance and I think mine was at the third level – relatively low level … there were many more levels … at least eight, I believe … probably more than that. In addition, I learned that one could not share TS SCI information even with someone with the appropriate clearance if that person did not have a clear need to know. I even originated a rare few of those highly classified documents. I detested the war and hated my job but it was better than dropping bombs on people.

At one point, I hosted an Air Force Captain – he became a Major while there - who was headed to Hong Kong to co-lead a highly classified intelligence monitoring operation along with a British officer. He had to await his TS SCI clearance which took months to get. We became friends and on one of my breaks I decided to visit him in Hong Kong. He even took me to that classified facility in the New Territories on a mountain ridge and introduced me to the British co-commander and his wife. I learned that one task at that facility was monitoring all of the air traffic in that part of the world … from southern China down to Indonesia and east and west likewise. The system was not yet perfected so that transmission of information was not yet automated but was being tested with hand developed messages that were not timely. When back at Clark Air Base I was on my third day of duty on a swing shift (4 pm to midnight) with a fresh second lieutenant coming on duty after me. He had not been briefed on the Hong Kong facility (that was not my job) and got one of those dummy messages and believing it to be serious sent it to PACAF HQ as if it was the real thing ... classified as a war message… it reported unusual air traffic conditions in Indonesia and PACAF HQ thought it was real and timely and called him that night and told him to retransmit it to the Pentagon … as a level 8 message which I could not have read even if I wanted to … but I was off to Bagio on my days off. That was the beginning of my troubles. When I came back to work, The Colonel called me in and read me the riot act as if I was responsible. The Colonel was fired that same day for incompetence and I was blamed for that as well, although I had nothing to do with the matter. That was when the powers that remained at CLARK AB decided to punish me and send me to Thailand to be in charge of a group of enlisted misfits who had to build a fence around Ubon Air Base.

Well, the end of the story was that Al Gore senior eventually came to my rescue and I came back to Clark AB three months later to be with my wife and newborn son who just three months old … born just before I was sent to Thailand. So much for my TS SCI clearance. I did manage to escape the Air Force with an honorable discharge. 

 

Uncivil War

 

I think of my older and wiser and departed brother often. His academic studies involved war and international relations. He has more entries in the Sage Encyclopedia of War than anyone else. I recall when we were in high school a family visit to Gettysburg. I was fascinated by trees as we walked around that sacred place while Danny was interested in the battle and how it progressed. I also recall talking with him about that war and I said it could never happen again, and he said do not be so sure. He was nearly always right. As I listen to the news, which I seem unable to avoid, I am thinking how right he was. We seem to be on the verge of what I call an uncivil war. It is not a regional north versus the south affair. It is a fair versus fear affair. Fear seems inclined towards intolerance and violence whereas fair seems inclined towards openness and understanding. History suggests that fear will prevail. My training suggests that the future may not resemble the past. But my brother was smarter and steeped in history. I worry.

What bothers me most is that I have no control of what is happening or likely to happen in the future. I can vote, but it may not count. I can contribute to those I support, but my funds are limited unlike the deep pockets of the true believers and truly crazed supporters of the new uncivil war that is waging in this troubled land of the freely betrayed and home of the mentally wounded. What can I do? I feel hopeless. The few times I have strayed outside a small circle of similarly concerned people, I have been told to shut up and stay away … even by some family members. I am troubled.

I am so troubled that I seem to find it hard to focus on work. I did manage to submit a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation and teach a summer course but it was a struggle. I even volunteered to be considered to serve another term as the doctoral program director at UNT, but I am feeling less than competent to continue as a professor due to having such a troubled mind. Retirement is not attractive as that would only increase the amount of time I would be consumed by the troubling states of disarray in this troubled land.

“It takes a worried man to sing a worried song” echoes in my mind. What to do? Eat more ice cream? More watermelon and fried chicken? I grew up in the South. I have lived and worked and spent much time in the North, South, East and West, and in other countries. There seems no escaping the madness that has gripped this troubled land. Where will it lead? How many more will die and be assaulted?

Worse than those concerns is that the madness seems not just prevalent in this troubled land but across the globe. Still, against all odds, there is grit and resilience in Ukraine, hope in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and sanity in New Zealand. But many are fleeing madness in South America and Africa. In spite of isolated instances of humanity, the overall state of the planet might be considered endangered … not just by global climate change but by global intolerance and inhumanity.

A still small voice in a dark cave is asking, when will it end? How will it end? Who can end the madness? The still small voice goes silent.