WELCOME LTC MCGREW, CHIEF OF THE HOTLINE

While I was in Washington and Chief of the Hotline, my good friend Frank Allen was at Northern Michigan University as the Professor of Military Science, which was called the PMS before that meant a female discomfort. Frank arranged for the Army to fly me out to talk to his cadets about Army careers other than Infantry, Artillery and Engineers. Since I loved the opportunity to visit with Frank, I was delighted. I took my daughter Heather with me to visit her best friend, Frank's daughter Kathy.

At the time I was taking a course in how to get a job in the civilian sector. One of the things we had been told was to get a "sincere suit" for interviewing. This was a blue pinstripe suit with a while shirt, burgundy tie, and collar pin. We had also been advised to wear this outfit a few times before wearing it to an interview. I had selected the flight to Michigan for my first wearing.

Things went well until we reached Green Bay, where we were supposed to transfer to a flight to Marquette. There we were told that the Marquette Airport was closed due to snow. We were directed to a place in the Green Bay terminal to wait. That place was a ramp with lots of baggage lined up along the wall. Apparently no one had gotten out for a long time. We sat there on the floor for at least an hour, during which time we observed Bart Starr, the coach of the Packers, meet a huge football player and lead him off to Packer-land, I guess.

Eventually we were called to the front door of the airport where we found a bus waiting. We bundled aboard and started off for Marquette. As we went north the snow got deeper and deeper. We could soon see why the airport was closed. The drifts on the sides of the road were as high as the bus. At one point we reached what appeared to be an intersection and the bus stopped. The driver got out, opened the luggage compartment, took out a broom, waddled through the snow until he found a highway sign, beat the snow off it with his broom, and, satisfied that he was where he thought he was, climbed back in and turned right.

The bus eventually arrived at the airport in Marquette where Frank and Kathy were waiting for us. The airport had large observation windows so that you could see out to the airplane parking areas and the runway, but that the windows were covered to the top with snow. The snow drifted against the airport had to be over 12 feet deep. And, our luggage wasn't on the bus. It would come in on the next airplane, we were told. Well, it didn't look like there were going to be any airplanes for a long time. It looked as if my sincere suit would be all the clothing I would have the entire four days in Marquette.

Frank drove to his home first, I said hello to his wife, Judy, we dropped off the girls, and then took me straight to the campus. He wanted me to see the campus marquee where important university events were announced. It said, "Welcome LTC McGrew, Chief of the Hotline.

Frank said, "Palmer, you're the biggest thing that's happened in Marquette in months, in fact since Jerry Ford came here over a year ago."

I laughed. Frank is one of the funniest guys I know, and you laugh a lot when he's around.

"No. I'm serious, Palmer. I've got you lined up to be on three radio shows and a television show, the 6 o'clock news. Everyone on the Upper Peninsula watches that show."

I laughed some more.

The next morning the first order of business was to get a shirt that didn't smell like a goat. Fortunately, Frank and I are about the same size so I was able to borrow underwear and a clean shirt. He checked at the airport but it was still closed. Then, before breakfast, he called two radio stations and I was interviewed over the phone. Frank and Judy were very excited, running over to the radio to tune in the new station when we made the second call. I was still pretty much asleep.

I spent the day with Frank at NMU, meeting his staff and quite a few cadets. At lunch in the faculty dining room, a well-dressed man (definitely not a faculty member) got up from his table and came over to me. He said, "You must be the CEO of some company, am I right?"

"No," I responded, "why did you think that?"

"I'm not sure," he said, "I guess its the way you're dressed." Chalk up one for the sincere suit. I was upset that I might be out of uniform for the speech. It just wasn't right for me to be in civilian clothes talking about my job in the Army. Still no flights into Marquette.

That evening Frank delivered me to the local television station. Like most radio and TV stations, it wasn't very impressive. I'm amused when I see them portrayed in movies as glamorous places in fancy buildings. They're usually in the sticks in small, non-descript buildings and the staff has tiny offices, if any. This anchorman did have his own office, albeit a small cluttered one. He took me to his office, probably to impress me that he had one, where we went over the questions he would ask me. Early on he asked if there was anything he couldn't ask. I told him he could ask anything he wanted, I was the one responsible for not divulging some information. I told him that everyone always asked about the President's use of the line, how often, when, for what, and so on. I couldn't answer that unless the President had released the information. He said he understood and that would probably be a good question to avoid.

I had recently had an up close and personal experience with the press. Ike Pappas of CBS had interviewed me in my terminal. He had done the same thing, gone over the questions ahead of time, so that I would be prepared to answer without hemming and hawing, I guess. Then, when the cameras were rolling he threw in every question he had promised not to ask, hoping to catch me napping. Finally I called him a lot of names that they didn't say on television in those days, and I knew he had to throw that part of the interview out. Once you've had that experience on national television, you aren't too impressed with the local TV anchorman.

When the news show began, Mr TV introduced me briefly, read two news items, and then began the interview. I looked at the clock, it was 6:04. He asked some of the questions we had gone over and then tried his sneak attack. When had the line last been used? What was it for? How often is it used? What are some examples? and so on. I was unimpressed with this guy and didn't think anyone was watching anyway, so I calmly said, "Fred, we talked about this before we went on the air and I told you..." I explained the rules and steadfastly refused to respond.

There was one irony and that was, unknown to me, the national press had reported that day that the Hotline had been used the night before for some crisis that was believed to be brewing between the US and the Soviet Union. After awhile, Fred hit me with that one. I couldn't afford to look surprised and I don't think I did, but I was. I knew about the "crisis" and knew that it would never result in a hotline message, but I couldn't say that without divulging more information than I should. After repeated attempts to get me to tell him whether it had been used, I said, "Look, Fred, I'm here. If the hotline were in use I would be there. That's all I know, but you can figure it out." Fred wasn't satisfied but it was commercial time. I looked at the clock and it was 6:11. I wondered if there was any other news that day.

After the commercials, Fred returned to the interview to the obvious surprise of his director. He had ignored a stack of news, probably with lots of tape racked up to use while he read it, just to talk to me. The sports guy and the weathergirl were standing by, too.

More of the same as the director kept giving Fred the "cut" sign. Fred wouldn't quit without a scoop. He didn't get one. It was 6:19 and time for another commercial break. At 6:22 Fred returned to the format, except that all the time he had left was for the sports and weather. At 6:27 the show was over. Of the maybe 20 minutes of the show not taken up by commercials, my interview had taken about 14 minutes. I was the only news that night on the UP.

Frank was bubbling over. PR was his goal, and he had just hit a homerun. Any student watching would have found out why I was there and when I was going to give my talk at the University. Frank was sure everyone on the UP would know. I wasn't convinced that anyone would watch that terrible news show. Frank said there was no choice.

The next day I found out Frank was right. Everyone on campus knew me. They all wanted to talk about it. It seemed they all hated that anchorman and loved the way I put him down. I was to address the Rotary at lunch. All they wanted to know was about the 6 o'clock news. They hated the anchorman, too. I was a celebrity and a hero!

The next day was my big day. My talk was in the evening. I had paid attention to the brief sports segment of the news the night before and realized I would be competing with the NCAA basketball finals. Since most ROTC cadets are male and since most are jocks, I doubted any would attend. Frank moved the time up to ensure we finished before the game.

Frank didn't appear worried about my talk. We knew each other quite well and he knew that I usually just talked without writing a speech ahead. He no doubt knew my story about the time that almost backfired on me. In fact, it had happened when I was teaching ROTC in Minnesota.

The Military Science Department had stopped at the Wagon Wheel for a drink or two on our way home one Friday night. While we were there a man walked in who seemed to know everyone but me. We were introduced and I was told that he was Bob Jones. He kept referring to me as "the young captain", which made me wonder a little about his condescending attitude. A couple of drinks later he found out I was just back from Viet Nam. "You're just the guy I need to give a Memorial Day speech at my high school," he said. I declined, but my boss said I would. Later I learned that Jones was a colonel in the Army Reserve.

I was busy, being new to ROTC and still moving into our house, and I never did prepare a speech. After all, I reasoned, how big could the high school be in Sauk Center, MN?

I got there about 45 minutes early, as Jones had instructed. He said that if I got there any later I wouldn't find a parking space. Oh, sure! It turned out that Jones was the music teacher and he was warming up his band when I walked in. There must have been over a hundred kids in it. When they started to play I was floored. They were the best high school band I had ever heard. Jones abruptly stopped them and shouted: "Peters, I told you if you ever missed that flat again you'd be out. You're off the varsity band." He turned to the kids sitting in the auditorium, some 40 or so more in band uniforms. "Lundren, you're now on varsity." A little girl picked up her trumpet and walked up on stage to the applause of the other JV band members. Peters slunk down from the stage and joined the JV.

"Oh Oh," I thought, remembering that Jones was a colonel, "this guy means business." Then I looked around. The auditorium was huge. It could probably hold over a thousand and it was filling up. Classes of elementary school students came marching in. Junior high schoolers followed. Then the high school students, followed by adults who filled in the bleachers and stood along the walls. It looked as if the entire town of Sauk Center came to this affair, and I didn't even know what I was going to say. I grabbed a program and started making notes.

It might seem that a Memorial Day speech would be easy to put together, but that wasn't true in 1967. Opposition to the war had just gotten intense and some antiwar demonstration was the highlight of nearly every newscast. Of course, Minnesota has long been a center of liberalism, and the leading antiwar candidates were from there: Gene McCarthy and George McGovern (from South Dakota right next door.) My experience with average Minnesotans, though, indicated that they were supportive of the Armed Forces, no matter what they might have felt about the war. I wasn't sure what sort of audience I would be addressing. High school kids, after all, are about to be college kids, and those kids were leading the antiwar effort. As I scribbled my notes I decided to just praise the efforts of the young men from Minnesota who were serving and dying in Viet Nam.

Following a couple of dynamite patriotic tunes by the band, Col Jones introduced me. Just before I stood up to speak, he whispered to me that I had to stop at exactly 11 o'clock for a minute of silence in memory of those killed in Viet Nam. Oh great! Now I had to watch the clock while I was talking.

I can't tell you the feeling I got when I stood up and looked out at over a thousand people who had come out to hear me give a speech. There was nothing to do but do it, so I did. I remembered to ask everyone to stand at 11, which they all did. It came off like magic, and I was the only one who knew I was pretty much making it up as I went.

Well, years later I still hadn't learned anything; I was equally unprepared for the big talk here at NMU.

When we walked into the lecture room, it was about half full, but not with ROTC cadets. There were some, maybe 25 or 30, but there were as many civilians there. I assumed they were faculty.

I hadn't gotten too far into my talk when one of the non-cadets in the front row raised his hand. I called on him and he said, "This isn't about ELF, is it?"

"About what?" I asked.

The whole front row exploded in explanations, all of them more or less talking at once. It seemed that the Navy wanted to install antennas in the ground of the UP, to broadcast to their submarines at Extremely Low Frequencies, hence the acronym. It made a lot of sense, I suppose. At those frequencies, the waves traveled through the ground all the way around the world. That had to be explained to me by the anti-ELF crowd that had come to debate with me about the program I had never heard of. They were convinced that the radio waves would raise havoc with them and their livestock. As soon as they realized that I neither had anything to do with it nor cared anything about it, they got up and left. Now I had a very small crowd. It included a reporter from the local paper.

I watched the time carefully as I had promised that no one would miss the tipoff for the NCAA finals. I closed by using one of Frank's favorite jokes. I said he had to get home and get into his sleepers with the feet and the little blue bunnies on them. The cadets howled. Their colonel in sleepers with feet -- it was an image they loved. Later Frank told me that that story lived on campus for years afterward.

The next day we were to go home. I would go from being a celebrity to just another lieutenant colonel in the Pentagon. If we could get out of Marquette. Frank showed me the local paper. The headline said, "Hotline Chief says Line Not Used in Recent Crisis." I had said no such thing, although I may have implied it. If anyone in Washington saw that headline I was in big trouble. But what were the odds?

Snowplows had been working on the runways the whole time we were there and they had finally cleared them. We went to the airport and the first incoming flight, our plane, brought our luggage. We claimed it at the luggage carousel and immediately checked it in for the flight home. It was my last day as a celebrity.