ABSTRACT
This essay was written when I was a lame duck in the Department of State in July 1948. I had arranged to leave government and to take a job teaching at MIT in September, but I wanted to stay on the payroll through the end of July. The reasons for changing jobs were manifold: I had been ill in the spring of 1948 and lost weight. I needed a change of pace after the hectic spate of day and night, plus weekend, work preparing the Marshall Plan estimates for the Congress. And I am embarrassed to say that I thought that the Republican Thomas Dewey would win that fall and make Washington a less sympathetic place in which to work.
