Class Notes

March 2003

by Tony Lee

I hope all classmates who are planning on attending the London Mini Reunion on June 11 through 15 have sent in their reservations. It's going to be a great event. If you're still undecided, take a look on our web site for the latest list of attendees and program activities.

One more announcement. The date of our annual class golf outing at the Yale Golf Course has changed several times. It's now on Friday, May 23. If you're not already on Martin Padley's list, send me an email and I'll make sure you're notified of the details.

Butch Hetherington is our new class delegate to the Yale Alumni Assembly which is held on campus twice a year. Butch practices law in Hackensack, NJ and has a son in the class of 2006. He attended the fall assembly on the Yale College curriculum and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Jack Rodnick wrote from San Francisco: "I'm just starting my first sabbatical ever. First I'm off to China to help the medical school develop post graduate training in family practice. Later I will spend some time in the UK looking at their changes in general practice training. For almost 15 years I've been professor and chair of Family and Community Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and feeling I've caught the hamster syndrome — running around on the wheel faster and faster and getting nowhere. I'm hoping the sabbatical will be the cure. In the past year my wife of 10 years, Judith Harding, and I have seen both our youngest children get married, so all 5 of our young adults are now launched. It's now time for us to do some playing."

John Boardman: "I am still working as a Foreign Policy Advisor to the Commandant of the Marine Corps on loan from the State Dept. The high point of last year was a trip to see the troops in Afghanistan; the low point being at the Pentagon on Sept 11. For fun I am rowing with the Capital Rowing Club and we did well at the Masters Nationals in August. My wife and I are thinking of retiring in San Diego in a year or two. Our son graduated from Carleton College in June and is teaching English in Japan."

Lindsey Kiang, now retired, spent three months last year at the Goethe Institute, achieving near-fluency in German.

An article by Lee Sigal, "A Deal to Stop North Korea Missile Sales," appeared in the Boston Globe in December. The article encourages the US to use diplomacy to stop the proliferation of missiles from North Korea. Lee is director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Studies Research Council in New York and author of "Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea." The full article is on our web site. It is very interesting.

The media recently has had fun featuring '64 classmates at various points on the political continuum. In December, the editorial-page cartoonist at the Cincinnati Post drew a sketch of a mother singing her child a bedtime Christmas lullaby: "...he knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake…" To which the kid interrupts and says, "Mom, I know all about John Ashcroft."

The New Yorker published an article in its December 16, 2002 magazine: "Joe Lieberman Looks Hopefully Towards the White House." It's an interesting and objective assessment of Joe's career and views, and his aspirations for the White House. Pete Putzel was quoted in the article. I was intrigued by the last paragraph: "Lieberman doesn't feel strongly negative about almost anyone in politics, and few seem to feel strongly negative about him. But in national politics that may be less of an advantage than it appears. Is civility really a political attribute that will mobilize the electorate? One of Lieberman's friends told me, 'Joe's biggest problem is that he doesn't have any enemies.' "