>I have a confession to make. When I quoted you as having bellowed, "Bob shut
Yes, I understood that it was Clark. I am very glad you "have vivid
memories of the way in which Bob Clark could create the illusion that he
was sucking the meaning out of life by going on at such great length about
almost nothing." I had seven years of that five days a week; you had four
days. But even that is not the whole story.
···
When I said, it didn't appear to me that
any harm had resulted, Dick Roberson posted an extended comment concerning a
variety of issues. One of the things upon which Dick considered was a
Christmas card he had received in which Bob McFarland made a comment about
his having been kicked out of CSG. When Dick went on to observe that Bob
McFarland could sometimes be tiresome, a mental cog in my thinking slipped
a notch. I didn't notice that Dick was talking about Bob McFarland not Bob
Clark.
---------------------
So I suppose you, too, have no recollection of what MacFarland said at
that 1986 Haimowoods meeting. I've heard back from Greg Williams and he has
no record of a _scheduled_ talk by MacFarland, and apparently no personal
memory of any remarks. This sort of supports my feeling that MacFarland
made his remarks during the Wednesday evening session where people
introduced themselves (which is not on tape). It's possible that you and
Greg did not arrive in time for that session, hence the lack of a tape. If
it were not for the fact that Mary, too, remembers the remarks in question,
I would begin to think I was dreaming the whole thing. But no, it really
happened, and it was in character.
I remember little about MacFarland's remarks but this: he described his
work with control theory and with Clark after I left,He said, very roughly,
that he had a lot of experience with applying it. He said that because of
his long clinical experience and his practical grasp of control theory he
was far better qualified to head the CSG that I was, and proposed to take
over the leadership. He also said at some length, working himself into a
little rage, that I had never appreciated his contributions to the theory,
and he concluded, "So fuck off, Powers!"
I suppose that sort of thing, conceivably, might not stick in the memory
of anyone to whom it was not directly addressed, but I am quite surprised
that so far nobody but Mary and I found that little episode remarkable
enough to remember. Perhaps it was shocking enough to contradict the view
that some held, or thought they should hold, of MacFarland and was
suppressed as a matter of good taste or diplomacy. I remember saying to
MacFarland, from the back row, that if he wanted to lead the group he was
welcome to try, though I doubted whether they would pay any more attention
to him than they paid to me. Maybe the lack of a response to his proposal
was what he was referring to when he spoke of being "kicked out of the
CSG." I'm not sure he stayed around for any more of the meeting, because
there do not seem to be any comments from him on the tapes (he lived only
about an hour and a half away). But he certainly was not "kicked out" at
least by me. It's clear he was there, because Ed Ford published summaries
by presenters in the Newsletter we had then, noting that among the
presenters not providing summaries was Bob MacFarland.
This was far from a trivial incident for me, because of a previous incident
with Bob MacFarland 26 years earlier. Clark, MacFarland, and I presented
three coordinated papers at a "Symposium in neural mechanisms, information
theory and behavior" at the V.A. Hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan (I'd
been remembering it as Kalamazoo until I found the Proceedings on a
bookshelf downstairs), The other presenters were M. H. Aprison, Anatol
Rapaport, James Olds, Mary Brazier, and Harry Harlow. Dick Robertson may
have been with us -- I don't recall. It was pretty heady company we had
been keeping, and MacFarland and Clark were jubilant. Well, I was pretty
happy, too.
After the meeting we drove home triumphantly, arriving back in Chicago
early in the morning. I think we had dropped Bob Clark off at the South
Shore railway station to go home to his Park Forest suburb south of
Chicago, or maybe we even took him home. Driving the two of us north on
Canal Street, Bob MacFarland suddenly said that he and Clark had been
talking, and that they agreed that my main contribution to psychology had
been the concept of the reference signal. MacFarland said that it was
unlikely that I would ever have another idea as important as that, so it
would be appropriate for him and Clark to take over direction of
developments in feedback theory from here on. Whether instantly or after a
moment to get over the shock, I told MacFarland to stop the car; I had to
insist before he did. I got out, walked to the train station, and took the
train home. I think. The memory fades out after I got out of the car.
Judging from the dates on the Proceedings, this occurred on the morning of
March 12, 1960. I must have contacted Donald Campbell, whom I knew by that
time, immediately. He must have arranged for my scholarship at
Northwestern's graduate school of psychology right away, for Mary, our
children (including Barbara who was still in progress), and I sold our
house in Rolling
Meadows and moved to Northbrook that summer to be closer to Northwestern,
and I started school in the Fall, along with a part-time job at Dearborn
Observatory to make up somewhat for the loss of income.
That is the story of how I came to depart from the group at the V.A.
Research Hospital in Chicago. It was not, as Dick Robertson was told, to
improve my state economically, nor did I say I would be available for
consulting if needed. I had been completely betrayed by MacFarland and
Clark, and wanted nothing but to get away from them and never see them
again. I didn't see MacFarland again until I was delivering a paper at a
meeting in Denver, some time in the seventies, and spotted MacFarland in
the audience. We said hello and I left. The first time I saw Clark after
1960, I believe, was at the CSG meeting in Durango, in 1990-something. He
had not changed a bit.
At no time did Clark or MacFarland contact me and ask why I had left, or
urge me to return to the fold. I had quite evidently given them what they
wanted. They knew why I had left. I can only hope that they were too
ashamed to face me after that.
Clark and MacFarland have been dead for some years now. De mortuus nil nisi
bonum and all that, but being accused of mistreatimg Clark has given me a
bit of a license to get this off my chest, now that neither man can be
hurt. I'll own up to any transgressions concerning others, but not this
one. Not this one.
Best,
Bill P.