_:1-. ___ __ THE WHITE HOUSE I WASHINGTON I I Mr. Donald A Gall 1165 Pinetow~ Rd ager Fort Washington .p ' ennsylvania 19034 ,' \\ MICHAEL K. DEAVER THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON Mr. John W. Gardner 2030 M Street, N.W. Suite 600 Washington; DC 20036 , ,_.. - DONALD A. GALLAGER 1165 PINETOWN ROAD FORT WASffiNGTON, PENNSYLVANIA 19084 lt February 1983 Mr. Michael Deaver The White House Washington DC 20500 Dear Mr. Deaver: I write to you for three reasons: {a) you are close to the President; (b) you have the reputation of being bright, capable and perceptive; and (c) you and I are fraternity brothers - Delta Sigma Phi (Upsilon, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster PA, 1933). I've just finished reading "Buying the Night Flight", the latest book by columnist and former foreign correspon­ dent, Georgie Anne Geyer. She has had vastly more exper­ ience and personal contact with events and people in Central America and the Middle East than any one individual in any government agency. Reading her book is much more informa­ tive than half a dozen briefings at the Department of State. In all seriousness, as a concerned citizen and a sup­ porter of President Reagan, I urge you to see that someone on the White House staff, Mr. Clark or perhaps Mr. Meese, reads this truly important book, now, so that the informa­ tion it contains becomes an ingredient of foreign policy discussions and decisions. Miss Geyer is not just another writer of books; she has appeared, by invitation, at the Naval War College in Newport, and the Army War College in Carlisle. With all good wishes, Yours in the Bond, JOHN W. GARDNER 2030 M STREET, N.W. SUITE600 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20036 February 17, 1983 Dear Mike: The Lakeside Talk which you asked me to send you is on page 20 of the attached. Enclosure Mr. Michael Deaver Assistant to the President The White House Washington, D.C. 20500 Number43 BOHEMIAN CLUB LIBRARY NOTES PUBLISHED FROM TIME TO TIME TO KEEP MEMBERS INFORMED OF THE ACTIVITIES OF THEIR LIBRARY AND TO ENCOURAGE THEIR USE OF ITS FACILITIES IS THERE A FUTURE FOR real problems in our society-believes that Amer­ ican men's clubs, to include ours, can continue to MEN'S CLUBS? do what we have always been doing in the way A LAKESIDE TALK, JuLY I8, I982 that we have been doing it, without challenge or change. Men's clubs, being social institutions­ By KEVIN STARR and that means institutions which are in the long run approved of and franchised by the larger so­ HANK you, Len Richardson. It's a pleas­ ciety-cannot be expected to avoid the challenges ure for me to stand for the fourth and transformations being experienced by the time at the Lakeside and address my church, the corporation, the university. fellow Bohemians and the welcomed And yet, as we admit this inevitability, we also guests of the Grove regarding a topic of experience much legitimate anxiety. Men's clubs immediate relevance, "Do men's clubs -for all the apparent power and solidity of so have a future?" A few short years ago, many of them, to include our own-are, like all such a question would have seemed other social institutions, fragile experiments. And purely speculative; but we Americans perhaps no club, in its inner essence, is as fragile Ji?- have witnessed in t~ese past two decades as Bohemia, founded, as it is, upon certain subtle, ~s profound changes m the structure and elusive premises which the outside world can operation of many of our national institutions: the never fully hope to understand and which we, churches, for instance, in the matter of the ordi­ alas, being human, hence liable to error, ourselves nation of women; corporations, in the matter of now and then lose sight of: this premise, first cele­ an increasing need for disclosure and affirmative brated by our founders I IO years ago, that Amer­ action; politics, in the matter of personal financial ican men might come together in a finer fellow­ information demanded of officeholders; and the ship, enlivened by an appreciation of music, university, in the matter of increasing importance drama, literature, and the performing arts, both of student evaluations and the need for enroll­ serious and satirical. Will all this be lost? We ask ments. Certainly, none of us here today-passing ourselves. Will it be taken away from us by our by, as we did, those good people at our gates, so legislators or our courts? Will the larger society many of them so well-intended, concerned with withdraw its franchise? Not even at the height of the Depression, when a truly revolutionary senti­ CONTENTS: ment, born of dire economic disaster, was abroad KEVIN STARR, Is there a Future/or Men's Clubs.? I in the land, was this anxiety more palpable, more RICHARD E. MCLEAN, An Outside Look 7 possible, than it is today. Partly through no fault IAN MACKINLEY, Bohemian Grove: of its own, and partly through its own fault, Bo­ Architecture among the Redwoods IO hemia has stumbled into the limelight of national, LYNN WHITE, JR., St. Francis of Assisi I7 indeed international scrutiny. The opening of our JOHN w. GARDNER, Self, Society and Renewal 20 Grove, for so long a private affair, becomes in- 2 BOHEMIAN CLUB L I BR A Ry N 0 T E. 'S ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_;_~~~~~~~~~-~~~~~~~~~- creasingly with each year a media event-with mission was demanding that the Bohemian Club stylized stories of corporate and governmental hire female employees in all sections of the City bigwigs cavorting as woodnymphs or peeing on Club and at the Grove. Speaking through its at­ trees appearing in newspapers across the world. torneys, the Bohemian Club argued in turn before We do not want this attention, we tell ourselves, Judge Kendall that it was delighted to employ sensing that such scrutiny-such a wholesale females in all phases of the Club's operations that broadcasting of misinformation-can in the long did not directly alter the essential nature of club run do us no good. And we wince as well at the gatherings or did not violate the right of free as­ erroneous drift of these press reports, with their sociation guaranteed by the American constitu­ fragments of half-information or even misinfor­ tion. In his opinion, the Honorable Judge con­ mation. This is not what it is like, we tell ourselves curred with the Bohemian Club: agreeing namely, and others when these stories appear. Why there that the Bohemian Club was what it purported is nothing said here concerning the long hours of itself to be-an association of gentlemen gathered rehearsal put into our Grove Play; nothing about together for enjoyment of the arts and each other's the excellence of our orchestra; the festive wit of company at the City Club and here in the Grove. our Low Jinks; the magic of midnight music waft­ To enforce the employment of females in all ing through the Grove; the elegance of a Saturday phases of the Club's operations, especially at the morning recital of Gershwin, Porter, Kern by Grove, Judge Kendall decided, would substan­ George Feyer at Land of Happiness; nothing of tively alter the nature and quality of Club activi­ the fine conversations in which American men dis­ ties and would hence violate the constitutional cover among themselves what C. S. Lewis de­ right of free association. The California Depart­ scribes as the first premise of friendship-com­ ment of Fair Employment and Housing, however, munality of vision, the discovery that others have overthrew Judge Kendall's decision and issued a thought and pondered and speculated along paths contrary opinion which the Club must, operating that we also have intellectually and imaginatively again through its attorneys appeal through the trod; nothing about our reverence for this Grove, court system. majestic with the silent but awesome immemorial music of nature at its most grand, American na­ THE QuESTION OF WoMEN ture, among the first psychological premises of our The question, then-Do men's clubs really have national experience; nothing in these stories, in a future?-is no idle one, for us Bohemians and short, that touches the inner essence of our Club for other similar clubs as well. All across America as we understand it, cherish it, and vow to pass on men's clubs are under various forms of legal as­ to others in the future as it was passed on to us. sault, reaching, as the letter from the club associa­ tion vividly dramatizes, in to the very halls of BOHEMIA GOES TO COURT Congress itself. Each of us here today might spec­ And if this media scrutiny were not enough, we ulate privately upon the motivation for such as­ face actual legal assaults upon our right to con­ saults and come up with a score of differing an­ duct Club affairs according to our own prefer­ swers. Socially, we are living through a revolu­ ences. Two weeks ago, for instance, the Board of tionary era in the area of women's rights, whose Directors of this Club circulated to the member­ general premise-namely, that women should be ship a letter received by Mr. O'Melveny, our equal before the law and in employment-few of president, from the National Club Association in us, especially the fathers of daughters, would se­ Washington, D.C. The letter outlined possible riously dispute. We do the cause of men's clubs a federal legislation that would, so Sam M. Berry, disservice, in fact, if we link our defense to even a president of the National Club Association, point­ half-humorous chauvinism.