Spencer Heath Archive

Item 3078

Letter from Alvin Lowi Jr. to Ted Marshall with biographical and other data on himself, Spencer Heath, and Andrew J. Galambos

February 28, 2008

 

Original is missing.

 

 

Dear Ted:

 

Attach my bio in your format. Got to rambling a bit because this is the first time I have ever tried to write out this part of my history. Tried to send it last week without success. Trying again reformatted. Hope you can open it and download it this time.  

 

I have written some other essays that may help fill in some blanks on the history of FEI and a couple of the key ideas that I believe distinguished Galambos’ teachings. There is an autobio entitled “A Lasting Encounter” written in 2003 for Prof. Walter Block of Loyola Univ. New Orleans and the Mises Institute for inclusion in an autobiographical archive maintained at the LewRockwell.com web site about the experiences of people discovering freedom. This archive is a collection of personal histories of libertarians regarding their awakening to the ideas. They are written along the lines of Jerome Tuccille’s “It All Began With Ayn Rand.” In my case, it was not libertarianism but liberalism, and my ideological history began with Andrew Galambos, not Ayn Rand. Incidentally, Jerome Tucille was no friend of Galambos.

 

I wrote other essays to explain how I sorted out the myth of political omniscience and discovered the grand alternative political government in the course of my Galambos understudy. These items are still in draft condition and would benefit from critical review. The titles are “Experience with Galambos the Author,” “Government as a Marketable Service,” “Must We Depend on Political Protection? (with Apologies to Robert LeFevre),” and “The Entrepreneurial Corporation.”

 

The most important debt I owe to Galambos is an understanding and appreciation of science, which I have tried to memorialize as “Scientific Method: In Search of Legitimate Authority in Society.” As you know, I have been working on this project for some years now and am up to Version IX going on X. I think you have Version I. That this work is unfinished is evidenced by Jay Snelson’s 100-pages of comments derived from his review of Version VIII.

 

It goes without saying that I welcome your comments and questions on my musings. You had a lot to do with getting me to write out my remembrances of my times with Galambos and FEI. I long hesitated to do so because, like most of the FEI graduates, I deferred to Galambos’ priority to get his ideas into print without adding to his distractions. Waiting thirty years for SIAA was an inordinate amount of time for deference. Still, there is as much yet to come with little or no prospect of realization. When does deference become indulgence? Oblivion?

 

Please pass on these sentiments to your Volitionist circle. I look forward to their comments also.

 

See you April 10 at the Shenandoah. Put me down for the fried chicken. A check for $20.00 payable to you is in the mail.

 

Best regards,

       Alvin

 

 

 

BIO FOR TED MARSHALL’S COLLECTION:

 

Alvin Lowi, Jr.

 

Born in Gadsden, Alabama, July 21, 1929.

 

Graduated high school in 1947 and left Gadsden to enter NROTC at Georgia Tech in Atlanta.

 

First came to California in June, 1948, as a Midshipman, USNR. Reported for duty on the light cruiser USS Astoria then moored at the San Francisco Embarcadero.

 

Received bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and commission in USN from Georgia Tech in June, 1951. Reported for active duty soon afterward on the amphibious assault transport USS Cavalier APA 37 steaming off eastern shore of Hokkaido, Japan.

 

Stricken with infectious hepatitis aboard ship in 1952, I was shipped to the Great Lakes Naval Hospital for treatment and convalescence. While in confinement, I read Thomas Paine’s “Age of Reason” and Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead.” I recovered from infectious hepatitis but not from infectious individualism. Reassigned to the Pacific Fleet via Navy Diesel School in December, 1952, I reported to the USS LSM 236 in San Diego as chief engineer destined for duty again in the Western Pacific Theatre of operations. In January, 1954, this ship was given to the French Navy for service in the Indo China War, whereupon I resigned my regular Navy commission. I was discharged from active duty in June, 1954, to return to civilian life and the study of engineering at Georgia Tech in Atlanta in the fall of 1954.

 

Completing graduate work in mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech I turned in my masters thesis in December, 1955, and departed Atlanta to return to California for the third time. Hired by the Garrett Corporation in Westchester as a preliminary design engineer, I was involved in the design of aircraft cabin pressure and air conditioning systems. Meanwhile, I enrolled in UCLA Extension for further graduate study.

 

I left Garrett Corp. in 1958 to continue graduate studies as regular student in engineering at UCLA. Offered a scholarship, I joined the technical staff of Ramo-Wooldridge Corp. around the block from Garrett to work on ballistic missile design. There I met Andrew Galambos. He occupied the adjacent office and was the member of the technical staff trusted to calculate the trajectory of the missiles I helped design. I also met Don Allen there. His job as a technical staff member was to program Galambos’ trajectory calculations on the mainframe computer. Allen was also Galambos’ partner in the insurance and securities business they were running on the side. I became a client and close friend. Galambos tutored me in thermodynamics among other things. Together, we three hatched the Free Enterprise Institute as a scheme to promote Galambos’ enthralling lectures on the subjects of science, astronomy, history, capitalism, personal financial security and freedom, which he was giving gratis at lunch-time every day in the cafeteria to whoever wanted to listen. Many did so because the Soviets had just launched “Sputnik” and few had any idea how such space flight was possible. Also, the communist threat from Moscow was palpable, never mind the socialist threat from Washington and Sacramento.

 

Ramo-Wooldridge merged with Thompson Products in 1959 to form TRW. Galambos quit soon thereafter over management’s rejection of his proposal to form and execute a commercial astronautics venture. He then joined the faculty of Whittier college but continued to work on building his own school, the Free Enterprise Institute. This project kept us in contact. Meanwhile, the part of TRW we worked for was seized by the Air Force and set up as a public trust institution with a single customer to be called the Aerospace Corporation.

 

Galambos despaired the world would be safe for astrophysicists, especially those like him. He resolved to do something about that and asked me to join in the effort. The Liberal Incorporated was organized with me as a director in 1959. The Free Enterprise Institute was subsequently formed as a wholly owned subsidiary.

 

In 1959, Galambos infected me with his infatuation with Barry Goldwater as a prospective President of the United States. He cozied up with members of Californians for Goldwater, whom he considered good prospects for his course. He also sold a lot of copies of Goldwater’s book off the shelf of Poor Richard’s bookstore in Hollywood, which attracted the owner’s support for the course.

 

But the political campaign became a distraction. It took Galambos to the 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago where he met Goldwater and declared “Nominate anyone you please. I’m voting for Barry Goldwater.” After the convention, he wrote off both Goldwater and the Republicans and set off to New York to find out if he could ally with some kindred spirits and minds in the freedom business, such as Ayn Rand, Ludwig von Mises and Henry Hazlitt. I drove with him to New York City in the fall of 1960 to help him break the ice.

 

Galambos returned from New York after Kennedy was elected with a plan to promote “Capitalism: the Key to Survival,” the first offering of the Free Enterprise Institute as Course 100. The following spring (1961), Galambos rented a room in the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel and started soliciting enrollments at a ridiculously low tuition. I was his unpaid staff assistant. Don Allen set up a book stall in the classroom each week and took orders. Peter Fleming, Chuck and Mary Estes, Billy Robbins, John and Muriel Platt, were among the twenty or so intense enrollees, who were excited to discover the alternative to communism. It was an exhilarating experience.

 

Galambos persuaded me and Billy Robbins to prepare and teach this course the following Fall, (1961) in other locations. I rounded up some backing from Peter Fleming and my Aerospace Corp. colleague Peter Bos and rented the back room in a bar at the Torrance Airport near my home. Peter Fleming was my first staff assistant. The Torrance class included Bos, Art and Ann Sperry, George and Lois Haddad, John Goode, Bob Calvert, John and Kirt Fenner, Arnold and Francine White, Carole Little, Cliff Wright, John and Maxine Cochran, Dolly Westerholm, Eleanor Weeks and others I can’t remember. The following Spring, 1962, Peter Fleming and Chuck Estes persuaded me to give the course in Santa Monica, which was done in a conference room rented at the Miramar Hotel. Among the attendees were Dick and Mimi Nesbit, Leroy and Shirley Taft, Phil and Patty Backer, Jack Carpenter, Lloyd Licher, Richard Grant, Don and Riki Balluck, Harry Browne, Jay Snelson, Polly and Paul Nielsen, Martin Fenton, Spencer MacCallum, Harlan Carr and others. It is difficult to remember who was enrolled in Santa Monica because of its proximity to the Valley where Robbins was lecturing and to Hollywood where Galambos was lecturing, and given the unlimited exchange privileges offered at the time.

 

Inspired by Galambos’ teachings, I started my own engineering business in 1962 and undertook to develop, manufacture and market an invention of my own for a change. With a young family to support and qualifying exams to prepare for and no way to suspend the clock and calendar, something had to give. I could not satisfy Galambos’ demand to prepare and teach more courses, and could not deny my ambition to be in business for myself. So I took the entrepreneurial path taught by Galambos and recruited Jay Snelson, Dick Nesbit, George Haddad and Harry Browne to pick up the FEI lecturing and mentoring baton and promoted their candidacy to Galambos accordingly. By 1965, I had replaced myself as an FEI lecturer in two locations and added three more. Meanwhile, Galambos had replaced Course 100 with Snelson’s more popular version designated V-50, and he introduced a new course V-201, which I attended and prepared to teach as a substitute for Galambos if necessary. I then (1966) quit Aerospace employment and wage slavery for good. I haven’t had a job since.

 

In the interim, I prepared a prospectus for a book publication venture designed to get a limited edition of Galambos’ Course 100 into print. I lined up $500,000 in subscriptions from about 30 people on the strength of my proposal to work with Galambos on a definite schedule and budget using available notes and tapes to compile, edit and print a limited number (100 was the original figure) of serialized copies of a printed compendium well-edited, indexed and bound. I had already prepared a table of contents, which Galambos admired, and I had in my possession a well-criticized set of lectures on tape (his and mine), which he considered worthy of transcription if necessary.

 

By the time I was able to arrange and present my formal proposal to Galambos in the presence of the subscribers in Galambos’ offices on East Beverly Blvd., Monterey Park (1964), some of them had already begun to bid up the ante for participation in the project. Apparently, low-numbered copies of the book were deemed more valuable and premiums were being offered to gain priority for obtaining them. This auction resulted in an escalation of the initial offering price of the book. Galambos got cold feed and vetoed my proposal. Fortunately, there had been no money transactions.

 

After Spencer Heath died in 1963, my friend Spencer MacCallum asked me to help him sort out his grandfather’s unpublished writings, particularly those that pertained to aeronautics, engineering, physics and philosophy of science. I was interested in Heath’s work based on personal acquaintance and considered this activity to be complementary to my research for FEI because Heath’s “Socionomy” was consistent with Galambos’ “Volitional Science,” and, but for failing health, Heath would have given a course on the subject for FEI in 1962. My report on this work entitled “Survey and Review of the Physical Science Inquiries of Spencer Heath” was published by The Heather Foundation (aka Spencer Heath MacCallum) in 1966. It contained a generous and elaborate acknowledgement to Andrew J. Galambos, which was most appropriate inasmuch as I had employed scientific insights learned from Galambos in accomplishing the work. Nevertherless, Galambos was displeased and refused to accept a copy of the bound document as a token of my appreciation.

 

I remained involved in FEI and LIONS Tech affairs as a research associate and back-up lecturer until 1969 when Galambos asked me to resign. The ostensible reason was that I could not give Galambos’ ideological program the priority he demanded. We disagreed on the question of which comes first, science or ideology. He asked me to disclaim proprietary rights to any innovation contained in his courses while, at the same time, tendered me a check for $500.00 as a “down payment” on accrued royalties. Our parting was amiable. I agreed to an unlimited license to any innovation attributable to me and to an abstention from any ideological activities that would tend to confuse, disparage or compete with him and his program. For me, this commitment was like Br’er Rabbits’ to the brier patch.

 

I continued to work with Spencer MacCallum on his grandfather’s literary estate. I consulted with Spencer on his book “Art of Community” published by the Institute for Humane Studies in 1970. After Galambos bought and sold all the copies of Heath’s book “Citadel, Market and Altar,” I worked with MacCallum to bring to print a new and expanded second edition for which I wrote a lengthy foreword. The second edition has not yet materialized but my foreword was finally published as “The Legacy of Spencer Heath: A Former Student Remembers the Man and Offers Some Observations on the Scientific Orientation of His Work,” Heather Foundation, July, 1998.

 

During the early 1970’s, I participated in several seminars at F.A. Harper’s Institute for Humane Studies in Menlo Park, CA. My concentration was on the scientific basis of Austrian economics.

 

During the 1980’s, I participated in a study group organized by Robert LeFevre called “The Seekers.” This group included Chuck Estes, Spencer MacCallum, Dick Nesbit, Butler Shaffer, Bruce Canter, Jack Pugsley, Ken Gregg and Jim Bennett. LeFevre was intrigued with the question “How do you know you are right?” and regretted he never had the opportunity hear Galambos’ answer.

 

I kept in touch with Jay Snelson over the intervening years. We collaborated on what we both considered to be Galambos’ most important gift to us, namely an understanding and appreciation of scientific epistemology and method especially as possibly applied to social phenomena. Our exchanges of correspondence on the subject led to my draft of “Scientific Method: In Search of Legitimate Authority in Society” in 1996. This was my first direct experience using a personal computer for word processing.

 

I had managed to refrain from any freedom-oriented ideological activities sanctioned by Galambos until Harry Browne asked me to critique a recollection of Galambos he was writing for publication in Liberty Magazine. About the same time (1997), I met Ted Marshall through Jay Snelson in a quest to retrieve some property from the Galambos estate. His friendship with Galambos and my friendship with both encouraged me to memorialize my experiences with Galambos and FEI well as to document my own ideas of the world as I have come to see them. A number of such items can be found on my computer hard drive as well as on the web at LewRockwell.com, Above-the-Garage.com, EconomicGovernment.com, League-of-non-voters.org., the Adam Ferguson Institute and the Institute for Socionomic Research. To access some of these items on the internet, just go to Google, enter “Alvin Lowi, Jr” and search the links.

 

Ted also introduced me to his “Volitionist Circle,” a group of students of Galambos who occasionally meet for lunch at the Shenandoah (formerly Jabberwocky) in Los Alamitos to reminisce about the intellectual adventures with the FEI. I have enjoyed stimulating e-mail exchanges with members of the circle including Ted Marshall, Colin Marshall, Larry Grannis, Joseph Droll and Brian Gladish. More recently, I joined the Clarke-Willson’s Volitional Science Group at YahooGroups.com where I am the senior scholar. I was also invited to join the Libertarian Forum at GoogleGroups.com as the token Galambosian. My participation here has helped balance the Wikipedia article on Andrew Galambos.

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