CHARLIE WILSON---YOU WERE RIGHT---I HOPE!

Back in the early fifties (yes, unfortunately, I'm old enough to remember that period!), President Dwight David Eisenhower had a Secretary of Defense named Charlie Wilson who had been Chairman and C.E.O. of General Motors, at that time a behemoth of an organization, to paraphrase Shakespeare, bestriding the world like a colossus. With the authority of his high position, he smugly assured us, "As General Motors goes, so goes the country." There were quite a few certitudes back in the fifties, that period of peaceful and steady growth of American economic and political power, and the premier position of G.M. was one of those givens. Wow, was Charlie Wilson right---but not quite as he intended that statement!

It is mindboggling, having lived as long as I, to witness the decline, the degradation, of General Motors, Chrysler and, to a more limited extent, Ford. It is painful when you consider the number of employees this fall from grace affects and the ripple effect it has on so many ancillary companies, nationally and internationally. Did we ever think we would live to see the auto giants nationalized (even, our new President tells us, temporarily)?

President Barack Obama likes to use the image of the nation as a large ocean liner and the inherent difficulty of changing the course of so large an object as a huge ship. In some part, this has been the problem of the auto industry in America: they have been so big and unwieldy and slow to change.

Unfortunately, part of this has to be ascribed to their own arrogance and complacency. "Don't you consumers tell us what to make---we know what is good for you." Of course the public was also complacent and smug; after all ,we had cheap gas, so what the hell does it matter?

The hybrid concept and electric power pioneered especially by the Japanese auto makers is a prime example. Is there engineering so superior to ours? No, but their sense of priorities was superior, and our boys were happy making gas-guzzling SUVs and the like. Now we have to play catch-up.

I am getting tired of being fed the old line about American know-how and ingenuity, second to none. YES, IF WE HAVE THE RIGHT PRIORITIES. LOOK AT 1969 AND THE MOON SHOT. Maybe one of the good things to come out of this world economic crisis is that it is making us reassess those priorities. Let us hope and pray that we start this reevaluation process.

A new start, a new attitude: maybe then what's good for General Motors can be good for the country.