I was a young engineer working at the local RCA plant. I had made a reputation for myself by doing some of the early work on the Color TV picture tube program and was later put in charge of the development of television Camera Tubes. I had faced some earlier decisions regarding war in general, and had disturbed the college authorities by refusing to take the ROTC course which “was required of all male students.” I had read the last page in the college catalogue which exempted religious objectors to war, but had to show the scheduler, the registrar, the president and the ROTC commander their own regulations.
All went well at my work for the next few years, until my supervisor asked me to take an industrial TV camera that I had developed to the roof of the laboratory to demonstrate its ability to detect a plane which a customer would have fly around the plant at different altitudes. I refused to do it and told him why. I fully expected to be fired, but my supervisor went to bat for me and put me in the engineering track rather that management track, and I continued to lead the development of camera tubes for broadcast service and other scientific TV uses. This suited me fine, since I didn’t want an upper management job anyway.
Our Quaker meeting was actively opposing the Vietnam war on many fronts, and I was participating in our “Peace Fairs,” trying to bring the war in it’s full nastiness and immorality to the local public. One technician was so incensed by my stance that he tried to get the company to require everyone to sign a “Loyalty Oath.” When they told him to mind his own business, he got incensed and quit for a job with the CIA.
Our local Quaker “Meeting” was asked to select the Quaker delegate for this group, and they selected me.
Near the end of the war, while the seemingly endless “peace talks” were taking place in Paris, the Quakers were asked to send a delegate on the plane that was being sent to Paris consisting of leaders from most religious denominations, to see if they could make any sense out of the peace talks and spur them along. By some arcane reason, our local Quaker “Meeting” was asked to select the Quaker delegate for this group, and they selected me.
I went in to see my supervisor and told him I was going to take my third week of vacation next month. He asked me if I was going to Paris. When I told him yes. He said that he would recommend that I didn’t go. So far I had told no one except my family that I was selected to this task. (Big Brother is watching you!)
When I returned from Paris, I gave several talks to wide audiences about what we found both good and bad about these negotiations. One day I was asked to come up to the personnel office, where I was greeted by an FBI agent and our Personnel officer. They inquired about my trip and discussed the fact that I had been given a security clearance when I worked in the factory just after the second World War when it was still owned by the Navy and rapidly converting to TV tube production. These fellows suggested that I request to have my security clearance withdrawn. Smelling a rat, I told them that I hadn’t asked for it, it was their clearance and that they would have to withdraw it if they thought it was necessary. I suspect that they felt that if I requested my clearance to be withdrawn, they would say, sorry, you can’t work here. If they tried to take it on their own initiative, they might be tangling themselves in lawsuits and bad publicity.
The result was that they set up a special area in the laboratory area, built with walls to the ceiling and doors that would only admit you if you had a special pass and all of the military contract engineers in the plant would do their work inside it. I was specifically prohibited from going into that area.
I continued my work at RCA till retirement, working on advanced development work in the field of TV. Competence beats bravado every time.