Howard Eliot Wolpe ‘60 October 16, 2008 Kristen Earl ‘05

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Howard Eliot Wolpe ‘60

October 16, 2008

Kristen Earl ‘05, Interviewer

Location: Reed College, Portland, Oregon

[digital recording begins]

Earl: [ringing noise from recorder]—Sorry, I am adjusting microphones. Today is October 16,

2008. My name is Kristen Earl, Reed College class of 2005, and today I am in Eliot 317 with

Howard [Eliot] Wolpe, class of 1960 [Editor’s note: Julianne Fletcher, the narrator’s wife, is also

present at this interview]. Thank you for taking the time to meet with me today.

Wolpe: I am delighted to do it.

Earl: I would like to start out by hearing a little bit about your birthplace and your family

background. Could you tell me where you were born?

Wolpe: I was born in Los Angeles, California. My mother was a clinical psychologist, my

father was a pediatrician.

Earl: So education was pretty important in your family.


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Wolpe: Yes, yes. It was always important. It was one of the values emphasized.

Earl: Was education a value also instilled by your grandparents?

Wolpe: I do not recall much being said by my grandparents. There was a kind of an assumption

in my family that I would enter one of the professions.

Earl: And did you have any siblings?

Wolpe: No, no. I am an only child.

Earl: Could you tell me a little bit about your early schooling and what brought you to Reed?

Wolpe: I went to University High School in Los Angeles, which was a good school, about a

couple thousand in population. I was always interested in attending a small, liberal arts college.

My recollection is that I only actually submitted full applications to two institutions. One was

Reed and the other was Swarthmore. Swarthmore did not accept me, and Reed did, so it was an

easy choice. But what drew me to Reed in the first instance was its size and its academic

tradition. I loved the fact that there were no fraternities or sororities. The exclusion of others

from your own social networks was something that I had abhorred in high school, and I did not

want to have to repeat that kind of experience. And I also loved the tradition as it was explained

to me of students being graded, but grades not being released to students unless they were doing

below “C” work. The fact that Reed had an honor principle that students were treated much as


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adults. All of those elements I found really intriguing, and that is what led me toward Reed.

Swarthmore has many of those same attributes in some ways, but it did have fraternities and

sororities, and that was one of the things that I did not want.

Earl: To step back a little bit, do you recall what your application process to Reed was like?

Wolpe: (laughs) No, not much. I do recall, however, going into the Admissions office just

before Christmas vacation, after I had been here a few months in my first term, to see how I had

ranked in relationship to my fellow freshman at Reed on the verbal and mathematics aptitude

tests. After viewing these results, I nearly quit Reed. I was so depressed to learn that I was in

Reed’s twenty-eighth percentile in mathematics, and fifty-eighth percentile on the verbal test.

And I remember going home and seriously having a conversation with my mother about whether

this was an institution I could survive. But she encouraged me to tough it out, and I did, and it

was all down hill after that.

Earl: What year did you enter Reed?

Wolpe: I entered Reed in 1956, September ‘56. I was also a little bit younger. I was still

sixteen. I turned seventeen in November of that year. I had always been a bit younger than

some of my colleagues. It was a little bit intimidating. But that became a non-issue once I was

here.

Earl: Do you remember how you learned about Reed as a college?


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Wolpe: I really do not. Someone else was asking me that today. I do not recall what brought

my attention to Reed. My mother and I were doing some systematic research about institutions.

I think we looked at all the liberal arts colleges, and I read about Reed’s reputation. I was just

intrigued by the uniqueness of some of the characteristics that I mentioned earlier.

Earl: Were you able to visit the college before you accepted?

Wolpe: No, I did not.

Earl: So, you get accepted, hoots and hollers of hurray, or at least that is how I assume it goes.

(laughs)

Wolpe: Yes, yes.

Earl: Then tell me about your trip up to Portland.

Wolpe: I remember that vividly. It was such an exciting experience. I remember getting on this

train, they were one or two cars devoted to Reed students coming up from Los Angeles. There

was a gal I met; by the time we arrived, we had become fast friends, in a brother-sister fashion.

We never dated, but we became close friends just in that trip by train to Reed. And then I recall

getting here, going on that five day outing to Breitenbush [Oregon], I think it was, to which all

freshman and any upperclassmen and faculty who wished to join were invited as well. And that

five day experience was one of my memorable experiences. In subsequent years, I never failed


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to go on those five day outings, even as an upperclassman. And then in my senior year, I ended

up chairing the freshman orientation committee so I had responsibility for some of that. But that

to me was an incredibly special way of introducing students to each other, creating a sense of

camaraderie among students and breaking the ice, and making people feel comfortable. It really

was a grand, grand experience.

Earl: What was the name of your friend from the train?

Wolpe: Julie [Judith B.] Muhlfelder [1960].

Earl: Was it easy on the train to pick out who were Reed students and who were not?

Wolpe: I think the whole car was reserved for Reedies. So you did not have to differentiate any

group as I recall.

Earl: Any particular icebreakers on the train?

Wolpe: No. It was just that a lot of students were going away from home for the first time. I,

myself, had many summer experiences away from home. It was not that novel for me. But still,

there was a lot of anxiety and mystery about what you were about to encounter. That is why

striking up a friendship on the way in was so important to me. It is one of the reasons I

remember that experience so well.


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Earl: What were your expectations of Reed as a college, either academically or socially?

Wolpe: Well, it had this reputation for academic excellence. Something else I was really excited

about was the prospect of being in a situation where you had such intimate contact with your

faculty. I had gone to a very large high school, with lots of students in every classroom. The

notion that you would have this seminar experience that would be more interactive and allow

you to engage with faculty on a much more immediate, intimate fashion I found really exciting.

And I was not disappointed in any of that. Also, I found that the ethos, from the Honor

Principle, which allowed you to take your own exams in your room, it assumed you were an

adult, to the grading system. I had been in one very competitive high school. I was always

preoccupied with my grades and such. It was such a refreshing change of pace to not think about

grades.

Earl: And did you find in general that grades were not considered anymore other than the

obvious “am I failing?”

Wolpe: Most students reacted as I did. There were a few, I remember, who were never

comfortable with that. They did not like the ambiguity of not knowing precisely where they

stood and that kind of thing. But that was just a few. That was the minority, as I recall.

Earl: Please tell me about the five day outing before classes would start? Your impressions of

what that entailed.


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Wolpe: A lot of folks singing around the campfire. Some hiking during the days. And just

getting acquainted with a lot of new people I had not met before. Being cold at night, and there

was some roughing to this process. But it was just a lot of fun.

Earl: Any friendships formed from that that you would like to mention?

Wolpe: Oh yes. I developed a relationship with a woman I met on that trip. (pause) It was brief,

very brief. It did not last more than a few weeks. But there many other friendships established

as well.

Earl: Great. So, you have been at Reed for a month or two. Tell me what your day is like.

What time you get up in the morning—

Wolpe: (laughs) Gosh.

Earl: If you get up in the morning—

Julianne Fletcher: What was the question?

Wolpe: What my day was like and how—what did I do when I got up in the morning and stuff.

Fletcher: What did you read, what newspapers did you read? (laughs)


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Earl: Would you go eat in the Commons?

Wolpe: Oh yes. I was on campus all four years.

Earl: Okay.

Wolpe: From the beginning. I spent a lot of time in the commons and the student union, where

you could go get coffee and talk with folks. I spent a lot of time there. My academic time, fairly

routine, I remember my freshman experience, of course, was memorable. Both in terms of the

western humanities, three lectures a week. And I still remember Marvin Levich [Philosophy

Professor, 1953-1994] and Warren [Irving] Susman [History Professor, 1953-58] lecturing at us

in the [Eliot] Chapel. And then going into seminars four days a week, which was a great

experience. I can not believe the reading that I did. I remember we had fifteen papers to write,

which I am sure is still the case here, beginning with short, two and three page papers and ending

up the last couple of papers at ten or fifteen pages. And I remember going into my professor, my

adviser, who was then Arthur [Hertel] Leigh [Economics Professor, 1945-1988], who was a very

well beloved professor here, an economics professor, having him go over every paper line by

line. I have always said I emerged as a pretty good writer because of that really disciplined

approach. Professors could not use letter grades for shorthand judgments, and the faculty was

really committed to helping us become good writers. I think that discipline in that first year

humanities program course was so worth it. It turned out to be invaluable for me.

I had discovered in my senior year of high school that was I was not as uncoordinated as I

thought I was. I was always younger than my classmates, and that was part of my convincing


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myself that I could never compete in athletics. But I loved sports, so I decided to go out for

junior varsity basketball, and that was the year Reed acquired a new basketball coach, Jerry

[Jerome P.] Barta [Physical Education, 1954-1988], who died just recently. Jerry had not quite

absorbed the Reed ethos about athletics. I always define that ethos by the fact that every time a

team won two games [in] a row, any team, there would be this editorial [in The Quest] blasting

the over-emphasis on athletics at Reed.

But Jerry had not quite appreciated that perspective, and he actually took this stuff

seriously, much to our amazement and disgust. He insisted that we actually have workouts

during the week in anticipation of the game. People were literally throwing up on the floor. We

had all been people who had compensated throughout our lives for the lack of athletic prowess.

(laughs) None of us was in condition. Especially since we had some of these religious schools,

like Concordia Bible College and Multnomah Bible College in our league. We used to joke that

our practice consisted of “watch your language.” But Jerry really tried to get us to be a much

more disciplined group. That year, as well, we had acquired a transfer from MIT [Massachusetts

Institute of Technology] who actually played real basketball on the junior varsity at MIT. So

suddenly, Reed College became a basketball power in our own league. We were finally able to

compete with Oregon Dental and Oregon Medical that had all of these jocks on them who had

played college ball. So people started coming out to the games, watching this stuff, and no one

could quite believe what was happening with the varsity. In my own case, Jerry never had a

deep appreciation of my capacities. I had a trick knee, and every other week I was on crutches,

hobbling around the campus. I remember my senior year at Reed and the Boar’s Head Banquet,

when every senior is given some memento of his four years of contributions at Reed College: in

my instance, I was presented with a year’s supply of bandages. I did not go back out for (laughs)


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basketball again after the first year. But it was still a blast. And the fact that I could do it at

Reed and I could never have done this any where else was great fun.

Subsequent to that, I shifted from basketball to folk dancing.

Earl: Before you shift to folk dancing, do you remember the name of the transfer from MIT?

Wolpe: No. I remember his face, and everything about him, but I do not remember his name.

Earl: Are there any other teammates that you would like to mention? Either from varsity or JV?

Wolpe: I think there was a fellow named Robert [J.] Gerbracht [1960] that was there. He was a

fairly good player. I just do not remember, I am afraid. I also still remember the cheer, some

volunteer cheerleaders would cheer us on. Give me a “W”, give me an “O,” give me another W

and another W and another O and another W. And what does it spell? Wubayu, wubayu

[phonetic].Wow! Wow! (Earl laughs) Or that was the Reed cheer. We had not practiced this

sort of thing. (both laugh)

Earl: Were the cheerleaders male or female?

Wolpe: I think anyone who could stand up and lead the cheer.

Earl: Nothing organized, of course.


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Wolpe: No.

Earl: So tell me about folk dancing.

Wolpe: Well, you could take folk dancing as your PE credit. And you were on your honor to

sign up for the hours of folk dancing. You got four hours of PE credit each week. So that is

what I did. I was a regular folk dancer for all four years at Reed, especially beginning my

second year, on every Wednesday and every Friday. It was down in the Student Union.

Earl: Who were the leaders of the folk dancing?

Wolpe: I am sorry, I can not recall.

Earl: Can you tell me what the session was like?

Wolpe: Oh, very vigorous. We did every kind of folk dance from Romania line dances to Israeli

dances to American square dance. We did hambo, waltz. It was just absolutely free and

uninhibited and everyone just really had a blast, and I came out of every one of those evenings

absolutely soaking through and through. We got as much of a workout as you want in any

setting. I just enjoyed that thoroughly. Those were the days, of course, when folk singing was

still very much in vogue. At Reed in those days, we had visit our campus all of the famous folk

singers, like Odetta [1930-2008], like Pete [Peter] Seeger [1919-present]. In fact, Reed College

was one of the few campuses that Pete Seeger was allowed to come and sing during the good old


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McCarthyist days. We were always very proud of the fact that Pete Seeger could sing at Reed.

Some of our most wonderful evenings were spent with Pete or Odetta, or these great singers that

would come through.

Earl: Was there a staff member who led the folk dancing?

Wolpe: My recollection is that there were many students, but I do not remember names.

Earl: There were not any student leaders you could recall?

Wolpe: No, no. I just do not remember who was managing all that. And folk singing was also

just kind of a tradition around the campus. So some evenings we would just gather together with

a guitar and sing songs, and that was a nice and wonderful tradition.

Earl: Were there any songs that you liked to sing?

Wolpe: Well, the whole Pete Seeger repertoire, I loved. Everything from “This Land is Your

Land” to all the other songs, the Woody Guthrie songs that he made so famous. He was such a

wonderful, charismatic singer. He just was singing on a record recently, I’m amazed that he is

still singing at his age. But he was such an extraordinary talent.

Earl: Great. Can you tell me a little bit about what a conference was like?


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Wolpe: Seminar?

Earl: A seminar.

Wolpe: Well, it varied obviously by the personality of the professor. Some of the professors

were—theoretically, it was supposed to be an exchange rather than another lecture. They were,

for the most part. For the most part you had this very interesting—you know, you would read

the book, you would come in and discuss the book and the implications of what was there, and

the professor would guide the conversation with his questions. There were a couple of

professors that were less good at doing that than others, who were, frankly, more boring than

others. But the fact that you could still have that exchange in a much more personal way and not

be lost in a crowd of students regurgitating what came through a lecture was a wonderful way, in

my view, to have a much deeper kind of learning.

Earl: Who were stand out professors for you in seminar?

Wolpe: Maure Goldschmidt [Political Science Professor, 1935-1981] was both my faculty

adviser at one point and was sort of my political science mentor. And he was wonderful. I was a

lousy economist, but I remember thinking [Carl M.] Stevens [Economics Professor, 1954-1990]

was a great teacher. I was just a bad student, when it came to econ. There was a mathematician,

what was his name? I stayed away from mathematics, you know I was always intrigued by

math, until my senior year when I had a few extra credits to play with and I finally signed up for

the introduction to mathematics course. It was taught by [Lloyd Bayard] Williams [Mathematics


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Professor, 1947-1981] I think it was, who was without a doubt one of the greatest teachers I had

ever had. I was enthralled in his classroom. Though I confess that it took me an entire year

when I was on my own trying to work out a math problem. I never succeeded. But I thought he

was fabulous. I had a wonderful teacher in the humanities courses. I am blocking on his name, I

can see the face, but I am having trouble conjuring up the name.

There are a couple other professors who I did not have in seminars but were always stand

outs because they were so interesting as lecturers. The two most notable were Marvin Levich

[1953-1994, Philosophy Professor], and the second was John [C.] Pock [Sociology Professor,

1955-1998]. Howard [D.] Jolly [Sociology Professor, 1949-1970] was the sociology professor I

had who was wonderful in a seminar setting. But I remember I was so touched decades later

when both Pock and Levich led an effort to raise money here at Reed for one of my

Congressional campaigns. And when I came here, I was the commencement speaker one year, I

was received by Levich and Pock as if I was their favorite student. And the truth was, I was so

intimidated by the two of them that I never even recognized that they knew my name. There was

no direct contact. I was so amazed by how they had sort of tracked my career and were so

engaged with what I was doing in those days. It was very moving for me.

Oh, and [Warren] Irving Susman was another lecturer that we loved to hear. He was just

phenomenal.

Earl: I would like to ask you a bit about social life at Reed. Can you tell me a little bit about

what dorm life was like?


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Wolpe: (laughs) I think every dorm had its own culture in different respects and different

traditions. I think there was a twenty four hour, three hundred and sixty-five day a year

Monopoly game that was always in process in one of social rooms of the dorm I was living in.

In those days, the dorms were sex segregated, and there were certain days, two days, three days

on the weekend when during certain hours you were permitted to have members of the opposite

sex in your room, and you were allowed to close the doors, but you were expected to behave as if

the doors were open. That was the standard. And one of the biggest controversies one year

erupted when someone at a student council meeting suggested that not everyone was acting as

they were supposed to. And the president [Richard H. Sullivan, President of Reed College,

1956-1967] of the day sort of panicked. I remember his calling a Reed Union. Now I gather that

Reed Unions are no longer part of the Reed tradition.

Earl: There are unions, but I’m not sure if they mean exactly the same thing.

Wolpe: The Reed Union was simply an all-campus conclave and we all were assembled over in

the big cafeteria. And everyone was there—faculty, students, the janitors, everyone turned up for

these Reed Unions whenever they were called. And we had this one big Reed Union on sex in

the dorms. The president was kind of threatening to cancel inter-visitation rights because of the

rumors that not all students were acting properly. And I still remember Mark [S.] Ptashne

[1961], who became a very famous chemist at Harvard, I remember him standing up and saying

“Well, everyone’s doing it. What are you going to do, kick everyone off of campus?” (laughs)

Which, again, led to great concern on the part of the president of the day. And nothing

happened at the end. The Student Council resolved that we would pass the word to try and


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reinforce the standards, and that was about it. But it was a very funny moment, and I remember

a bunch of us dorm advisers—I was a dorm daddy or dorm adviser, or whatever they called it in

those days—we all got together, because we were very annoyed at the administration’s threat to

sort of curb student powers and student autonomy. So we all got together and wrote a blistering

letter to the Quest all in protest, that we were all going to resign or something—I do not know

what we were threatening—if the administration started imposing its way on the student body.

So that was a big deal.

Earl: Do you remember what year the sex Reed Union happened?

Wolpe: I think it was probably my junior year, I’m guessing, which would have been around

’58, ‘59, I would think. Or it may have been ’59, ’60.

There is a prank that was played on me once that I still recall, with some affection, where

my dorm advisees, my dorm residents went out when I was not there, and they wired my radio.

So in the middle of the night, about two or three in the morning, the radio starts talking to me

(laughs), and I wake up “What’s going on?” you know. And it is the radio. And they were

speaking from a microphone a few rooms away. (laughs)

Earl: And do you remember the names of your pranksters?

Wolpe: (laughs) Jesus. I do not remember right now. I think one of them might have been Peter

[M.] McCaughan [1963]. Peter McCaughan. I am positive about that.

Earl: Do you remember what dorm you were living in?


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Wolpe: I was living in one of the ones in the valley. I think it was Valley 1, 2, and 3 or

whatever they called those things1. I think I was in the one closest to the parking lot.

Earl: And which year was this at Reed?

Wolpe: That would have been my senior year, I think, ’59, ’60.

Earl: Did you get off any good prank in retaliation?

Wolpe: No, no, no. I was not as creative. But there were things like that were happening

around the campus all the time, and there were a lot of stories constantly being told about what

happened in earlier years. I am sure you have heard the story that allegedly happened in the ‘50s

during the McCarthy years here about a year or two before I got here. [“Happy Birthday” is

sung in the background] But over a period of some weeks, several students went down to the

used bookstore in town and began buying a lot of books, one, two, three cents a copy [cheering,

applause, singing is over]. And over the next several weeks began to slide these into the

bookcases in the library. Then, one night, with great fanfare, they built a huge bonfire outside of

the library, went over to the cafeteria and got all of the students to come out and watch this book

burning, and charged into the library, and began to pull off these books from the library shelves.

Apparently, reportedly, the librarian had a heart attack in the process of this thing. But there was

a certain flare for some of the things that were done here (laughs) at Reed in that period of time.

And I still remember, and I think this happened in my experience, when somehow a Volkswagen

ended up in the inside of the dorm in one of the social rooms. Mysteriously, of course. 1 Possibly Coleman Dormitory (Cross Canyon Men’s Dormitory), 1959-1997.


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Earl: Of course. To jump back a little bit, can you tell me what your duties entailed as a dorm

dad, and how you got that position.

Wolpe: It was appointed by the dean. It was a way of earning some dollars. And our role was

to serve as adviser to the students if they had questions and needed assistance of any sort, and

sort of just keep track of their wellbeing while they lived in the dorm.

Earl: Was there a curfew or did you have to enforce any rules?

Wolpe: There was no curfew. But if there were issues of violations of rules or conduct, we were

supposed to try and deal with that.

Earl: Can you tell me about a little bit about your time on Student Senate?

Wolpe: I do not know how long I was on the Student Council. Is it Student Senate, is that what

they call it?

Earl: Yes.

Wolpe: I do not know how long I was there, at least, maybe a couple years. I even ran for the

Student Body President at one point, and lost to Tom [Thomas M.] Landye [1960]. I remember

that well. But I really enjoyed my time on the Student Senate, partly because it was for me, you


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know, acting out on the fact that students really have some autonomy and decision making

capacity. I enjoyed that experience.

Earl: What sort of issues did you deal with on the Senate?

Wolpe: Well, I remember there were a couple crisis moments early on. There was an instance

of a student committing suicide, and there was another student using peyote, and who

experienced, I think, a psychotic break. And so we sort of were beginning to have to deal with

these issues of drug use and trying to figure out ways of dealing with that effectively. My

recollection is that there was some student council or student representation working with faculty

on specific projects, even, I think, there were even some curriculum kinds of discussions that I

can’t recall very well right now. Student council also organized campus wide student activities,

like the Reed Union, for example, which I think was initiated by the council. Their general role

was also to enforce the Honor Principle if there were any alleged violations.

Earl: Can you tell me a little bit about how the Honor Principle informed your day to day

activities. Is it something that applied only to the classroom, or was it something that applied to,

say, Monopoly games?

Wolpe: (laughs) No, It was pretty well focused on classroom and academic activities. But just

to have that sense that you could take your exam in your room and were trusted not to cheat, it

was just a great feeling, it was really quite special. Then it was a testimony to the set of


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assumptions that were being made about students being able to function in a responsible fashion,

and it created an ambiance, a feeling about the place that was quite wonderful.

Earl: To go back a little to socialization. What was the dating scene like?

Wolpe: (laughs) I remember the one thing that I personally, and we would always talk about

this, Reed was a very small community. So everyone knew what everyone’s business was,

which is not always great, but particularly if you were dating women—different women—if you

were male—dating different women within the same dorm or the same room cluster. There were

many awkward moments that related to my four years here that related to knowing too many

people (laughs) and that kind of thing. But it was like a small town or a small community, and

you had to assume that everyone knew everything about everyone else. And just live with that,

even though it was not always a comfortable reality.

Earl: What was a date like? Would you stay on campus, would you go out in groups?

Wolpe: Oh, both. I mean, a date could mean going folk dancing together, or going to an event

that was being held on campus, a concert or lecture what have you, or you could go into town

and often did. I still remember special moments in town (pause) going to hear Paul Robeson

[1898–1976, singer, actor, activist] sing at the Portland Auditorium2, and on another occasion to

hear a famous cellist whose name escapes me at the moment, who was a very, very wonderful

musician. We would take advantage of those kinds of opportunities in Portland as well.

2 Now the Keller Auditorium, located at 222 SW Clay, Portland, OR, 97201


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Earl: Were you able to receive student discounts on those sorts of cultural activities at all?

Wolpe: I do not remember that at all. At least, I do not remember that happening in those days.

And then, of course, you would go out for drinks or for pizza and what have you in town.

Earl: Was there a lot of dating between faculty and students?

Wolpe: No, no. There were a couple of instances. And some faculty and students that would

subsequently marry that I remember. I would not characterize it as widespread, and I am not

sure it was supposed to take place, but there was some that was taking place.

Earl: And there were never questions about the ethics of those relationships?

Wolpe: That is why I say that I do not recall what the norm was or the standard in those days on

the campus. But we were all aware of a few instances of that happening, and whether or not the

college explicitly tolerated it or it was happening without knowledge, I just do not know. I do

not recall.

Earl: As a student, or the general student population, what was their attitude toward student-

faculty dating?

Wolpe: I do not recall. I do not recall any conversation on the subject. I just do not remember.


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Earl: What was the student population like on campus, the male to female ratio when you were

there?

Wolpe: I am not absolutely certain. When I was here at Reed, the college was substantially

smaller. We had seven hundred students on campus. There were two hundred in my entering

freshman class. I graduated with ninety-nine. There was fifty percent attrition. And so it was

even smaller and even more intimate than now, even though the college is still pretty small. But

in terms of the ratio of men to women, my sense though is that I think it was roughly fifty-fifty.

It was not significantly off that.

Earl: Would you say the majority of the students were fresh out of high school, or was there a

population of veterans on campus as well?

Wolpe: No. In those days, almost everyone was fresh out of high school. There were few

exceptions. One of these exceptions was a thirteen year old that arrived at Reed when I was in, I

think, my junior year. Lenny [Leonard] Ross [1963] was his name. He had won sixty four

thousand dollars [Television game show The Sixty-Four Thousand Dollar Challenge] on the

subject of the stock market. This [hundred] thousand dollar question on this big TV show [The

Big Surprise, 1956], and his own subject was the stock market, and Lenny was remarkable to see

on campus. He succeeded to the extent that he ended up finishing his law degree [Entered Yale

Law in 1963] by the time he was eighteen, I think, but then ended up having a tragic future. He

committed suicide some years after he was teaching at law school [died May 1, 1985] And so


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that adjustment for someone who was thirteen years old—throughout his life, a genius, was

obviously a difficult one for him.

One of my other great favorite moments was this other guy who actually—we had this

one suicide on campus during the four years I was here. His name was [John] Ramsey [Ramsey-

Hill, 1959]. And Ramsey was quite a character. He wore a cape as his garment of choice.

Periodically, Reed would have a debate with the West Point Academy [United States Military

Academy at West Point] and I still remember, I think it was my freshman year of college, the

West Point cadets came to Reed, and the topic of discussion was the Middle East crisis, the

conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. These West Point cadets were taking this so

seriously. Our guy was so irreverent, and they did not quite know what to do with his

irreverence. Finally, at one point he stood up and said “I have the perfect solution for the

conflict between Israel and Palestine. We need to get the Jews of Israel and the Muslims of

Palestine sitting down at a conference table, to work out a good Christian solution.” (both laugh)

That was one on my highlights of my early days at Reed. (both laugh)

Earl: Okay. (both laugh) It looks like we have about twenty minutes left, so I would like to ask

you about your thesis and your thesis experience.

Wolpe: Oh God.

Earl: It says the name of your thesis was “Social Contact and Political Orientations at the

Community Level.”


24

Wolpe: They did not tell you the real story about my thesis yet?

Earl: No, but I would like to hear it.

Wolpe: Oh Jesus. I was very proud of this thesis. I had executed a secondary analysis of survey

data that was compiled in Portland, and I was trying to understand the relationship between

people’s orientations to their local neighborhood and their patterns of behavior and interaction.

And I finished my thesis, I go back to start graduate school at MIT and I have as one of my

professors my first year at MIT, a very famous fellow by the name of Karl [Wolfgang] Deutsch

[1912-1992], who was of German origin, who had pioneered in the field of the application of

quantitative methods to political science. And one day I was just chatting with him about my

thesis, and he became very interested and asked if I would I bring it in, so he could read my

thesis. So I very proudly walked into his office one afternoon and handed him my thesis, and he

asked me to sit down. And in my presence, he read the entire thesis. He had one of these

amazing abilities to read a page at a glance. And he literally flipped through the pages. Then he

comes to the page where I offer my major conclusion. And he looks up at me, and in this heavy

German accent which I cannot replicate, he says “This is very, very interesting. It seems you

were asserting that point oh two five is smaller than point oh one.” (Earl laughs)

I immediately just broke out in this cold sweat, and he goes to the back of my thesis,

where I had several pages of chi square computations, and he says “This is also very peculiar.

It’s interesting, but peculiar. It appears that there is no correlation between the entries in the

cells and your computations.” (Earl laughs)


25

It turned out that my entire thesis was a bunch of garbage, it was totally ridiculous. I

remember walking out of that office, just hanging my head, not knowing if I would ever go back

in his classroom again. I have never felt so humiliated and so ridiculous. (both laughs)

Fletcher: What happened in the final analysis, did you have to make some corrections?

Wolpe: It was too late, I’d already gotten my degree. I wasn’t going to go back—

Fletcher: Oh that is right.

Wolpe: I did not send this back to Reed and say “Hey, maybe I gotta come back.”

Fletcher: We are going to let him go anyway.

Wolpe: [everyone laughs] So any rate, that is my thesis for you. (laughs)

Earl: Well. (both laugh)

Wolpe: I know it is not what you expected.

Earl: So who was your advisor? (everyone laughs)


26

Wolpe: Kalesh [T.] Dudharkar [Political Science Professor, 1959-1988]. An Indian who had

arrived at Reed a couple years earlier and was my adviser for the thesis. I had a whole

committee that had theoretically had read this thing. No one had picked up on these errors.

Fletcher: I think we are going to have to go with no. (Wolpe laughs) At least not closely.

Earl: Minus what you learned about your thesis later, what did the experience of writing a thesis

teach you?

Wolpe: It was miserable. (all laugh) I remember all these late nights in the social room and just

trying, struggling to get this thing done on time. I obviously did not learn anything. I know that

is a cruel acknowledgement. I suppose it gave me some experience in handling survey data, but

obviously I did not know what to do with the data. (all laugh) Sorry.

Earl: That may be the best answer ever. (all laugh)

Wolpe: You will appreciate this. When I was invited here some twenty-seven years after my

graduation to be the commencement speaker, the President of the College [Steven S. Koblik,

President of Reed College, 1992-2001], not Colin Diver, but the one who preceded him, stood up

to introduce me as the commencement speaker. And he is holding my thesis in his hands.

(Fletcher laughs) And he says he had gone to the library and he got my thesis. And I remember

breaking out into a cold sweat in anticipation of what he was about to say. But it turned out he

obviously had not read it either, fortunately. (all laugh)


27

Earl: I am sorry. (laughs) That is just great. (all laugh) Trying to get over it—

Fletcher: He wrote a lousy thesis and nobody read it.

Earl: Yes. (laughs)

Wolpe: That is a good use.

Fletcher: How is this going to make all the students here feel when you tell them that? (laughs)

Earl: It is a learning experience.

Wolpe: Oh, jeez.

Earl: William Bernhardt, also class of 1960, said when he was interviewed, that when you were

both up for the Rhodes [Scholarship] for Oregon, and he beat you out on it, and he has regretted

that every since. Did Willam Bernhardt represent Oregon?

Wolpe: No, no, that is not what happened.

Earl: Oh good, then tell me what happened.

Fletcher: See?


28

Wolpe: It is almost as bad. I was actually the Rhodes Scholar nominee that year—

Earl: Okay.

Wolpe: It was the first year in seventeen years that Reed did not get the Rhodes Scholarship.

(laughs) I remember going in to my interviews with the Rhodes Scholarship board having

convinced myself I was not deserving of this in the first place. And so I did all sorts of crazy

things like sitting on my hands (laughs) during the interview.

Fletcher: Who was the other guy, who was the other person?

Wolpe: I remember Bernhardt—it was William Bernhardt, right?

Earl: Yes.

Wolpe: No, I remember him, but I do not know—

Fletcher: That is why—maybe this is a Hillary Clinton Bosnia thing.

Wolpe: Oh no, no, no, no, I remember this one vividly.


29

Earl: That is funny, because he goes on to say that he has always regretted that you did not get

the Rhodes because he thought you would have gone all the way and would have been the

president instead of [William Jefferson] Clinton.

Wolpe: That is really very funny. (Fletcher laughs)

Earl: (laughs) That is what he says.

Wolpe: That is really very funny.

Fletcher: Because he did not get the Rhodes.

Earl: No.

Fletcher: So whichever one of you it was who screwed it up (laughs)—

Wolpe: Is it possible that there were two of us nominated for the Rhodes Scholarship?

Earl: I do not know. I was just reading through his transcript.

Wolpe: That is really very funny. Yes.

Fletcher: He thinks he is the one who lost it, and you think you are the one that lost.


30

Wolpe: Yes, I know I did.

Earl: Well, congratulations to you both for getting this far. (laughs)

Fletcher: That is funny.

Earl: Okay, we have got about a little under fifteen minutes. In general, could you talk about

how your Reed education prepared you for your life’s work?

Wolpe: Both in a formal sense and in this kind of difficult-to-capture sense, it was a huge

impact. In a formal sense, a lot of the work I did in sociology and political science I think helped

inform my approach to politics and my understanding of politics. The deeper impact for me and

what I loved about Reed was the constant rejection of the conventional wisdom without serious

questioning, and the irreverence. And the constant testing of assumptions. I think that my life

and my career, in a way, has always, sort of continued those characteristics that I loved so

greatly, so deeply when I was here at Reed. All my work—I have usually found myself in

situations of going against the grain, and of having to be creative—for example, figuring out how

does a Democrat get elected in a Republican district. Or how does one introduce a new approach

to peace building that is not accepted by the conventional diplomatic wisdom. Or in [United

States] Congress trying to take on issues that were just not popular oftentimes and thinking of

strategies that would enable us to succeed in that area. Or even in the classroom, where I ended

up departing from the conventional lecture format and having students sit in rows, and moving

toward a seminar style or interactive process where I defined my role less as a lecturer and fount


31

of all wisdom trying to impart that to my students, and more as a facilitator and resource person

that would engage students in an interactive way, which I did in my last couple years of teaching.

In all of that it would not have been anywhere near as likely for me to be able to succeed at what

I was doing had it not been for the preparation and sort of conditioning, socialization if you will,

that I experienced here at Reed.

Earl: So would you say the value, if we were to put it in very concise words, would be learning

how to think, or—?

Wolpe: Learning how to question authority. Learning how to think creatively. Learning how to

question. And I think that for me was the essence of it. As I say, the other thing I liked greatly

was the irreverence that was always present, because in a sense I have never tried to take myself

too seriously. (laughs) Julie will recall that I used to insist that my greatest political strength

was my fallibility, because I was always doing things like falling off platforms, or walking into

doors, and knocking on elevator doors and that kind of thing. (Earl laughs) I think that, in the

end, was a way for me to establish contact with people and build relationships with my

constituents.

Earl: Is there ever a time when your irreverence got you in trouble? (Wolpe laughs) You do not

have to answer that.

Wolpe: I am trying to think. Nothing comes to mind instantly.


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Fletcher: Irreverence [indistinct]

Wolpe: No.

Earl: Works fine in Congress as well in the classroom.

Fletcher: Your irreverence is more private.

Wolpe: Yes, yes. My staff—what I loved, people were amazed—always remember people were

amazed, because my Congressional staff, for example, the years I was in Congress. People

called me not Congressman. It was always Howard. They never took me seriously, to my

occasional dismay. (Earl and Fletcher laugh) And it was a very different kind of atmosphere

than in other Congressional offices. And in the classroom, I remember a lot of my students

would call me by my first name. I did not ask that they do that, but it just happened. It would

become a great source of concern to some of my faculty colleagues. That it was somehow

inappropriate. But I have always argued that when people can call you by your first name, that is

a way of narrowing distance, and improving communications. And so a lot of the work we do

overseas these days working with leaders in conflict settings, I use some of those same lessons

and try to get them to comprehend that the effort to hold onto power by putting yourself above

the people is ultimately counterproductive. All of those lessons kind of go together.

Earl: Great. Now we have got about five [minutes], so are there any stories that you would like

to tell, or topics we have not addressed that you would like to speak on.


33

Wolpe: [talking to Fletcher] Can you think of any stories I have told you over the years that I

have not shared?

Fletcher: [indistinct]

Wolpe: At the alumni thing? [Biography sheet]

Earl: Yes, this is what (paper shuffling) you wrote up.

(pause; paper shuffling)

Wolpe: No, I do not think so.

Earl: Well, tell me about—

Wolpe: Oh yes, I do remember one thing. The graduation ceremony here was very special for

us. John Kenneth Galbraith [1908-2006] was our graduation speaker in 1960. And we all went

down into the canyon there, into the Amphitheater, kind of contemplating the standard

commencement address that would be quite serious. Perhaps provocative, but serious. And

instead, it turned out to be one of the funniest speeches we had ever heard from this great

economist. I even remember the title of the speech, “In the age of the word fact.” We were

living in a Nixon era where words were coming to have distorted meanings. It was like a George

Orwellian kind of thing. And so you know, the MX Missile, was known as the Peacekeeper.


34

And he did a whole kind of riff on how words were being distorted and perversely used, and so

on. It was hysterically funny. It was a tremendously enjoyable graduation ceremony, which

none of us, I think, had quite anticipated. [laughter in background]

Earl: One thing that I would like to ask you about is that you mentioned McCarthyism. And the

College prior to your entrance had been a little more permissive than some people would have

liked to the House of Un-American Activities Committee. Did that influence Reed at all? How

as a student did you have a perception of that? Was it something you thought about?

Wolpe: When I was here at Reed. I entered in ’56, we were coming out of the McCarthy years.

Earl: Right.

Wolpe: But it was still, you know, memories were with us. We took great pride in our

iconoclasm and our openness to have all these very controversial figures come on campus. That

was a source of great pride, and the ethos was quite left of center, but there was very little overt

political activity. There was one organization called Focus, as I recall, that was kind of a group

of people that characterized themselves as socialists, but they did not have a very large

constituency. There was no engagement in presidential elections, or local elections, or anything

like that as there is today. None of that happened. We were all very much inward looking on the

campus itself. But you know, there were a few people that were classically conservative. Most

the student body was pretty progressive and left-wing in its general political orientation.


35

Earl: How did the city of Portland view Reed College?

Wolpe: Well, we used to joke here that our motto was supposed to be “atheism, communism and

free love.” The greater Portland community probably believed that was true. There was always

some tension between town and gown, and some suspicions about the community and what we

were all about here at Reed. The college had worked out some special understandings with the

local police force so they would not come onto campus to enforce liquor laws and that kind of

thing, and tried to reduce points of confrontation. But the community relationship to the college

was never, at least in those days, very close.

Earl: Okay. One last chance, anything else?

Wolpe: No.

Earl: Well, our time is drawing to a close. On behalf of the Reed College Alumni Association I

want to thank you for sharing your experiences with us.

Wolpe: Okay, great. Thank you.

[Transcribed by Amanda Waldroupe 2007, November 1-17, 2008, audited by Kristen Earl 2005 November 30 - December 2, 2008, reviewed by Howard Wolpe 1960, December 2 – 7, 2008, narrator changes made by Kristen Earl, December 8-9, 2008, final read by Cynthia Lopez, August 6, 2009]

Documents

Howard Eliot Wolpe ‘60 October 16, 2008 Kristen Earl ‘05