As Told By: David E Anderson
I first met Clayton Thomas the first week of June 1964. It was at the first Air Force Operations Analysis (AFGOA) staff meeting I ever went to. I had just arrived the day before from Strategic Air Command Headquarters in Omaha. The other new hire who was there that day was Tom Donohue, whom Clayton had just taken on as a new member of his team. I knew I was in very good company, and soon I too was working for Clayton as a member of his Program Evaluation Group or PEG.
The role of PEG was to evaluate the study planning within the Air Force community and it is interesting to reflect on the diversity of its members as it shows something of the breadth of interest of Clay's mind. Besides himself and Tom (a PhD in philosophy who was expert in international law), Clay attracted Col. Hank Chisholm an astute analyst and SAC bomber pilot with broad experience. Dick Warfield was an expert in analyses who was doing a Theater Air Base Vulnerability (TAB-V) study under Clayton. Charlie Hunt was an intelligence analyst of note and of wide experience. Maj. John Smitherman, a Naval Academy graduate, was a fighter pilot and a gifted linguist who had excellent credentials as an analyst. I was the resident engineer with a background in hypersonics, rocket and jet propulsion, and space systems' analyses. The secretary for the group is now known as Paige Anderson, and she was unexcelled at her job.
In a just world, Hank Chisholm and John Smitherman should have made general, but most of you know the difficulties associated with that career path for analysts. Hank later became an analyst with the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and John became military attache' to a number of Latin American countries where his language and diplomatic skills were put to good use. Tom Donohue, as most of you who knew him can attest, could get more productive work done in a two hours than the average analyst could do in a day, and I always called Tom our primus inter pares. The diversity of skills was no accident. Clay valued all the diverse skills of his group and was himself more than conversant with the areas we had all worked in. It occurred to me that of all the speakers today, I am the only one who once worked for Clay.
Clay was always very fair, but I have to tell you he was one tough boss and not easily pleased with a product — it had to be perfect before he would sign off on it. When we as analysts wanted to get a report out, we waited until Clay was off on a trip and then threw our report in Hank's in-basket as he would be acting chief in Clay's absence. In later years, in Air Force Studies and Analyses, I asked Clay why he let some things go by in AFSA reports that he would never have tolerated in AFGOA and he just said he had mellowed somewhat over the years. But, I doubt that. I think he had just found it impolitic, if not impossible, to hold the AFSA analysts to his standards which never changed as evidenced by his own work over the years. I left AFGOA in 1970 for jobs with industry, then the Executive Office of the President, and later the Office of the Secretary of defense, but I always kept in touch with Clay and he was ever a helpful and concerned mentor. If I had a tough problem to solve, I could always count on Clay to show me how it should be done. I have been fortunate to work with a lot of brilliant people at Caltech, SAC, industry, the President's office, OSD and finally AFSA, and I can say that I never knew the equal of Clay. He was special.
In 1986, I rejoined Clay, as a colleague this time, and arduous as he was to work for, he was wonderful to work with as I was sure he would be. When Tom Allen took over as head of AFSA I was extremely pleased to see the respect he accorded Clay right from the beginning. But there was a reason for that too. Tom had been in AFSA as a Major and well knew what Clay could offer to support him.
With all that, Clay was always fun. I was working for Clay while I was going to law school and he was always interested in what I was doing. I once mentioned to him the Supreme Court's decision on pornography. The court had said that they "could not define pornography, but they knew it when they saw it." Clay with a roguish grin said that he could not define it either, but he "knew what he liked!" I have a well-earned reputation for sleeping on airplanes, and when Clay and I took a Learjet to the west coast to a conference, I slept the entire way only to wake up as we were coming in for a landing in San Francisco. I said to Clay, "I hope you enjoyed the scintillating conversation," and he shot back, "never a dull word." Once at a meeting the speaker challenged the audience with a whole series of questions such as "what would you do if ..." and "what should be our answer for ..." and "what could be expect from ..." After so many of these preemptory challenges, Clay murmured under his breath to me "beats me!." He was like that, and he used humor as a mnemonic device to put little memory hooks on things.
But Clay was always totally serious about his job and was even noted for getting a mountain of work done on the twice yearly vacations he and Jerene took. Once, he came back from a one or two-week "vacation" with a 120-page report he had done entirely while away. Work was not work to him-it was what he enjoyed most next to his family and his friends, and he kept up on everything not only in his field but in a wide variety of subjects. He was as well-read as anyone I have ever known.
Once, when I came back from a vacation of my own, I told Clay of the really interesting book I had read of the American general who did much to win the Revolutionary War by fighting and losing battles to Cornwallis all through the Carolinas and Virginia. The deal was that Cornwallis won many individual battles until he over extended his logistical tail and the American general drove him into Yorktown exhausted and short of supplies.
When the French fleet bottled Cornwallis up in the port and Washington's artillery pounded him, he had no choice but to surrender. But I could not remember the general's name; Clay immediately supplied it —Nathanael Greene.
When Clay and I accompanied Ambassador Paul Nitze to a conference on the west coast, Nitze happened to mention an obscure book a nephew of his had written. Nitze was totally amazed when Clay not only knew the book and its author, but supplied a review of the book on the spot and made pithy comments on its content. Ambassador Nitze later commented to me in a private moment as to just how impressed he was. I told him it happened all the time.
Two of the speakers today have mentioned "legacy" and oddly enough that is the very word I had noted down as to what would be Clay's legacy to us. I don't believe any of us can be as smart, or as dedicated, or work as hard as Clay. He just had it in him-he made it fun, and it was what he did better than anyone else. Surely he set the standard that we can all strive for, and to me that is the legacy of the man. And, we will all miss him terribly.