Madmen
My Dad was a television executive in the 1950’s and 60’s. He started at the “bottom”: a spot advertising salesman for WLW-T in Cincinnati back at the beginning of the television era in 1952. He worked his way up, switching to selling individual television shows for Ziv Productions around the country. Dad was a “leave on Monday, come home on Friday” guy, talking to us kids from hotel rooms in Lansing or Ottumwa or New York. You have to be of a certain age, well past Medicare eligibility, to remember the shows: The Cisco Kid, Highway Patrol, Ripcord, and Sea Hunt among them.
By the early 60’s he was back at a TV station, WLW-D in Dayton, first as Sales Manager and then as the General Manager, the CEO of the station. He was working for a company called Avco, a hard-drinking, hard-living, and hard-dealing bunch of businessmen who owned and ran television and radio stations. I never watched the series Madmen, but from what I gather about the show, they were the kind Dad worked with.
Tough Love
Dad wasn’t that kind of guy in a lot of ways. He was never a hard drinker, in fact, a couple of drinks put Dad to sleep. And he was intensely loyal to Mom and our family. There was no chance of Dad having an affair on the road or with his secretary, unlike most of his co-workers. But he was tough.
I first learned how to swear in the Boy Scouts (of course), but I learned the nuances of profanity from listening to Dad on the phone with his salesmen. At first, I thought he hated those guys. The way he spoke to them was terrifying. Later I realized that, in Dad’s own way, he was showing how much he cared. He wanted them to succeed, both for the company but also for themselves. This was how Dad was taught, and this was the way he knew to teach them. If he wasn’t pushing, yelling, demanding, and swearing; then they should start worrying about their job.
Business was business for that generation. Dad was an exception. As a salesman at heart, he knew that trust was part of the “secret” of his success. But that wasn’t the general trend of the business back then. When Dad put together a multi-million dollar deal to buy WLW-D from Avco, his “friends” found another buyer to outbid him. And when many of those same friends bought out the company they waited until Dad was retiring, and cut him out of a life-changing multi-million dollar profit. Business was business, no hard feelings. Let’s have a drink, at the mountain home in North Carolina or the beach house in Florida.
Strategic Business
The nation of Australia had a deal with France to purchase advanced submarines for the Australian Navy. Why have submarines? Australia is a major player in a region including North Korea and China. To this point, they had tactical weapons, good for defending from the pirates along the Cambodian coast. But to act as a strategic power, to have a place at the table of West Pacific military affairs, they needed to have a stronger military presence. Twelve diesel submarines, modern attack weapons, was the deal, worth $66 Billion.
But nothing says strategic weapon like a nuclear submarine. For Australia there was only one place to buy “nukes”, the United States. Up until now, the United States has only shared nuclear submarine technology with one other nation, the United Kingdom. The US offered Australia nuclear submarines without nuclear weapons capabilities, but with conventional cruise missiles, and also the nuclear ability to remain at sea for many months at a time without refueling.
The Biden Administration saw an opportunity. Australia could take a larger role when it came to Chinese expansion into the South China Sea, as well as issues with Taiwan and, of course, North Korea. What was a dominant US presence with some help from the UK, could add a third partner to “share the load”. And it doesn’t hurt that US companies will be building the submarines. It’s not likely that Australia will save money going from twelve diesel subs to eight nuclear subs.
French Pride
France is more than angry. President Macron withdrew his ambassadors from both Australia and the United States. France too is an ally, and a leader in the “Western Alliance”. And they have been “dissed” by the US and Australia. The French are a proud nation, and a nation cut out of a $66 Billion deal. It will take a lot of US and Australian diplomacy, and probably some way to make up the economic damages, to smooth over the rupture in relations.
But business is business: both economically and strategically. The United States is looking for help in the Far East to balance growing Chinese influence, and Australia is looking for a larger presence at the table. That’s a win-win for the new AUKUS (Australia-United Kingdom-United States) relationship. It’s another bolster against the growing Chinese influence in the Pacific. And it’s a blow to French pride and economics, a blow that will need to be made up.
Maybe we can ask them to join us for a glass of champagne at our mountain home or at the beach.
