Featured review: the republic of forgetting: Max Kampelman: arms control in Sydney.

• Author: Levine, Paul
• Position: Essay

After assignments in London and Germany, I became the Consulate's public affairs officer in Sydney, Australia. The left wing of the ruling Australian Labor Party wanted to show its displeasure with the Reagan re-armament program, especially its expanded missile program, by stopping our navy from using Australia's ports. We needed those ports to help maintain control over the vital shipping lanes between the U.S., Japan, Australia and the rest of the Far East. Our ships got fresh food, water, other supplies in Sydney and shore leave for the crews. I asked Washington for a top-level speaker to come down to meet with the media for a week to put our arms control case to the public. I was astonished when Max Kampelman was offered to do the job, as one of his underlings would have been a much more likely speaker to be sent to Australia. Max was our chief arms negotiator, a top foreign policy job.

I had clashed with him at WETA, public television station, years before when I was a current affairs producer there. He had been the President of WETA and had tried to stop my program about the Three Sisters Bridge controversy. Max was a lawyer with political influence as a top advisor to Hubert Humphrey, Senator and one time Presidential candidate. Max wanted to stop my program going on air because major trucking and construction companies wanted to ram a major interstate highway through Washington, D.C. Max made money from them through his law firm. He got my immediate boss the News and Current Affairs Editor, fired because my boss had backed me up and got the program aired. That made Max look poor in the eyes of his pals in trucking and construction.

I cabled him my proposed schedule for a grueling week of radio, television and print interviews. I explained in detail the hostile atmosphere and particular concerns he would meet. He agreed to the schedule. I picked him up in the morning at the airport and briefed him over lunch. He was traveling with his daughter, about 25, who needed to get some special vitamin pills at a drugstore so we stopped to get them en route to their hotel. I was surprised by her as she was not mentioned in the cable traffic on Max's visit. However, I booked them into two rooms at a good Sydney hotel and picked up Max on time next morning to begin his hard schedule. Max remembered me from WETA and was a bit distant at first. However, we worked well together. I escorted him to all his interviews, introducing him to the...