Who Knew? (Wheat & Tares Part III)
By Late Nite LeRoy
April 14, 2001
I finally had the privilege of sitting down and spending a full day with my
70+ year old uncle and discussing history. By no conscious choice on his own, he
found himself critically involved in his younger days as part of the Manhattan
Project. Now in his own retirement years he was given the task of interviewing
one of the key players in the development of the atom bomb, but which also led
to the development of much needed medical and industrial instrumentation for
society as a whole. The gentleman my uncle worked with and recently
re-interviewed is Dr. Beckman of Beckman Instruments, now 101 years old.
During one of his many crucial journeys between Washington DC and California
during the war, he had a plane stop over in Denver. Passenger priorities of the
time gave service men and apparently Hollywood celebrities first priority when
boarding overbooked flights. Working on the top-secret mission, he was incapable
of revealing that he was working on a government project, and gave up his seat
to several servicemen and the celebrity Carol Lombard. She and all who boarded
that plane that day were killed when it crashed in the mountains shortly after
take off.
The Manhattan Project used little paperwork and a lot of simple human memory.
The whole project could have come to a major stall at that point with the loss
of Dr. Beckman. He was transferring critical design information across the
country entirely by memory so as to prevent blueprints from falling into the
wrong hands.
Today with Echelon, Carnivore, bankers and brokerage houses adhering to
"know your customer" rules, one wonders if a private citizen may need
to start transferring personal information the same way the Manhattan Project
did. If we try, we run the same risks they did. Will the messenger make it to
his destination? Forgive me if I turn philosopher for a moment and ask a
rhetorical question. Who is that stranger in the seat next to you on the plane?
Who is in that car flying the opposite direction on the freeway? Only God knows
what good and what evil are in the hearts of men. Some carry good news. Some
carry bad news. Some like Dr. Beckman carry both. And some are only speeding
toward their soon departure.
As another once said, "I know not what the future holds, but I know who
holds the future." With that, I will be content and not worry about the
risks around me beyond standing up for the righteousness that God teaches us to
do.
--LateNiteLeroy
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