Preface
The genesis of this book emerged on Saturday, June 24, 1967, the interim day between Summit meetings. At a modest home in Glassboro, Dean of Instruction Stanton Langworthy and I had a meeting of our own concerned with planning ways and means for gathering source materials relating to the most significant event in the college's and town's history. In each of our minds was the thought of establishing somewhere in the college a Holly Bush Summit archives room where scholars later could find and use primary data for the preparation of research reports. But to each of us the archives project alone lacked completeness; an element in our planning seemed missing. Why wait years to gather and string together Summit Conference data in organized form? Why not start writing the Summit at Holly Bush story while memories were fresh and data uncluttered with archival dust? These were the flashes of insight that got this volume underway.
At attempt has been made in this book to weave together the multitudinous details and events of the Summit Conference. I have tried to give readers the feeling of what it was like to have been at the actual scene as the Summitry excitement gripped Glassboro. By so doing it is my hope that readers will gain an understanding of how a small college and town faced up to the problem of hosting, with less than a day's advanced notice, the leaders of the world's two nuclear powers.
At this point I wish to express appreciation to persons without whose aid this book could not have been written. Throughout the hot and humid months of July and August, Glassboro students Francine Brown, Ann Pivarnik, and Janyce Wolfgang organized and placed into notebooks for ready use thousands of newspaper and magazine clippings, transcribed tape recordings, and tabulated questionnaire data. Mrs. Elizabeth Gwin and Mrs. Donna Saqui, the souls of patience and good humor, spent countless hours in typing rough and finished copies of the book. To Dr. Thomas E. Robinson and Walter F. Campbell I extend gratitude for their aid and encouragement during the days when I was doing the research and writing of the volume. My warm appreciation goes also to Dr. Lawrence B. Johnson, friend and colleague, who skillfully and penetratingly wrote Chapter One. His willingness to do so was a morale booster and time-saver.
At attempt has been made in this book to weave together the multitudinous details and events of the Summit Conference. I have tried to give readers the feeling of what it was like to have been at the actual scene as the Summitry excitement gripped Glassboro. By so doing it is my hope that readers will gain an understanding of how a small college and town faced up to the problem of hosting, with less than a day's advanced notice, the leaders of the world's two nuclear powers.
And I am especially grateful to Glassboro's Distinguished Professor Dr. Nila B. Smith, whose generosity in creating the Nila Banton Smith Underwriting Fund supplied the financial means for publishing Summit at Holly Bush.
Finally, my thanks go to countless numbers of Glassboroites-students, faculty, administrators, townspeople, town officials, and business executives-who cheerfully filled out questionnaires, contributed materials, and granted interviews. These fine people gave me the same fine brand of cooperation they displayed throughout the Summit Conference. I am grateful.
