Word: unger
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...four "reviews of the scientific literature" impress one with how tentative and unco-ordinated research has been. They seem to keep reviewing each other. Sanford M. Unger's is the most informative; the others can be ignored. The most frightening kind of experimental fooling-around mentioned in the book is Eric Kast's work in Chicago. Kast decided to send 128 doomed cancer patients into hopped-up oblivion by giving them LSD without warning or previous instruction. He then calmly graphed the depression and "fear and panic" reactions, hallucinations and morbid fears of death...
Since 1962 Unger has handled three major and countless minor crises in Laos, ranging from the assassination of Foreign Minister Quinim Pholsena through bullet-spanging dustups between rightists and Pathet Lao forces. At the same time, he has managed to play endless rubbers of bridge with Prince Souvanna, and tries to get in half a dozen sets of hard-slamming tennis a month. When trouble appears, Unger as likely as not will send his children out riding along the banks of the Mekong River on their Laotian ponies, Victory and Puck, to show family calmness. He accepts the topsy-turvy...
Victory & Puck. Through two years of duty in Laos, Unger, 46, has demonstrated what one State Department admirer calls "that uncanny ability to keep several balls in the air at the same time." Born in California, Unger was educated at Harvard (B.A. in geography, 1939), experienced his first diplomatic crisis during the Trieste negotiations of the 1950s, and graduated to Southeast Asia in 1958. In the inter national cat's cradle of Bangkok he learned not only to speak Thai (which is related linguistically to Lao) but also how to keep cool in a hot climate...
Cards on the Table. By that standard, the bells cannot have been ringing in Laos last week. "It's been a very rough spell," Unger said during one of his rare breaks. "It's not good enough to sit here and try to put out fires from day to day. I wish we had more time for constructive thinking for the long run." As he explained the current crisis: "The Pathet Lao attacks in the Plain of Jars represent a flagrant land grab. We don't intend to see the whole country gobbled...
Beneath his affability, Unger is a hard operator. When Premier Souvanna Phouma last week balked at allowing U.S. fighters to accompany reconnaissance flights, Unger called on his old bridge partner. Just what cards he used were not revealed, but one rumor had it that Unger warned Souvanna to either accept the armed escorts or get set for more drastic U.S. intervention. By week's end, Souvanna seemed once again to be seeing eye to eye with Unger...