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"There's no job I have really aspired to that I haven't had," reflected Elder Statesman John McCloy last week. The occasion was a dinner sponsored by the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. McCloy, 82, who has served as Assistant Secretary of War (during World War II), president of the World Bank, U.S. High Commissioner for Germany, and adviser to seven Presidents, received the institute's third Statesman-Humanist Award—which puts him in good company. The first two winners: Jean Monnet, architect of Europe's Common Market, and former German Chancellor and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Willy Brandt. As old friends Henry Kissinger, McGeorge Bundy and Robert Anderson, chairman of the institute, listened, McCloy insisted modestly that his career has been marked "more by its length than its height." He is in fact still busy, helping push the Panama Canal treaty through Congress. "It's been a fascinating life," he mused. Yet he has no plans to write an autobiography. Why? "If I could distill out of my recollections some pearly bits of wisdom, I'd go to work on them," he says. "But so far, that distillation has eluded me."
On the Record
Alan Paton, South African author, at Harvard University rapping clergymen for their silence on the subject of apartheid: "It's about time that missionary activity be directed to the white people."
Edward Brooke, Republican Senator from Massachusetts, on conditions at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: "When you go to the White House, the place looks physically dirty, people running around in jeans. It just doesn't look right."
Jimmy Carter, before attending an American Film Institute gala: "In the South, we date life either before Gone With the Wind or after. But perhaps we saw a different version than the rest of the country. One of my favorite scenes was the burning of Schenectady, New York—just before Grant surrendered to Robert E. Lee."
Walter Michael Palmers, an Austrian tycoon who was kidnaped and ransomed for $2 million, upon returning home to a crush of reporters: "Gentlemen, I am one hundred hours late for dinner. Now I must first make my excuses to my wife. You will understand that this may take some time."
Edward Teller, principal architect of the H-bomb, reflecting on his life 25 years later: "I don't give a good damn what my public image is. I have one image of myself and that is of a man who is shaving."