FROM THE DESK OF IKE: VOLUME I
"COMPUTERS"

Exclusive to The Washington Pugilist, thirty-fourth President Dwight D. Eisenhower, has graciously consented to draft a series of topical commentaries on modern life. In these short, memoir-like essays, President Eisenhower enlivens the historical community with wisdom, witticism, and warning punctuated by never-before-told anecdotes from his already immensely storied life and times.

My fellow Americans, veritably, the computer will play a large and important role in the future of our nation. As an inoperative citizen, I cannot relate an opinion informed by the times, and thus encourage my words be taken merely as what they are intended: lessons learned spanning a lifetime of prudence and careful judgment.

I understand that words often mean little, though, when the orator cannot back them up with experiential knowledge. As such, I would like to speak candidly for a moment about an incident that still engenders regret upon reflection, but is nevertheless germane to the topic.

On the night of the 1952 election, like many Americans, Walter Cronkite and the CBS news team's skillful on-air coverage held my attentions rapt. That year's campaign had left me favorably equated with television and my confidence in its integrity was suitably quite high. Justifiable, I believe, was my excitement at the positive news brought by early returns. The last leg of our campaign's push had been strong and we were convinced Stevenson's widely reported advantage had dissipated entirely.

By nine o'clock that evening, word came from Philadelphia across the Baltimore Commodore's telegraph informing us that a machine there had given our chances at victory 100-1 odds. What Henry Cabot Lodge explained was that a computer system was being given return data as it became available and used that data to calculate probability.

Directly, I boxed my friend in his ear. What he had told me was very unfavorable in my estimation and I was heavily inebriated. Nixon, extracting from the blow that a fistfight was beginning, hurriedly approached from nearby and stepped on Henry's foot before kneeing him in the groin. My friend was injured and I was responsible.

My part in the attack was spurred by nothing more than a misinterpretation. My perception of Henry's pronouncement of 100-1 odds just a little more than an hour after polls had closed was that we were losing, and badly. My reaction was visceral; Henry had done an irreproachable job as my campaign's manager. Yet, in that moment, I put the burden of irreversible, embarrassing defeat on him and his phony computer numbers fed across a wire by an undoubtedly bookish fellow in Philadelphia, a city of which I was never fond.

According to a committee investigation, nothing in the machine's output explained its system of reporting. To this day, I am still not fond of the syntax with which odds and probability are expressed.

It is my understanding that computer systems have improved themselves in the years since a UNIVAC forced me to hurt Henry Lodge. This is a positive revelation and one that should be embraced by governmental and business institutions. With that embrace, however, must be trepidation. An even greater threat to national equanimity than widespread miscegenation is the commingling of the private and technological sectors. If America is going to continue to flourish, it will be through people, and not, rather, through boxy metal behemoths.

xoxo

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