Yigal Amir; Carol Mutter; William Bratton; In Space, No One Can Hear You Sweep; No More Sweet Talk; The Visionary in a Palo Alto Garage
Unswayed by Yigal Amir's argument that biblical law compelled him to assassinate Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, a three-judge panel last week convicted the 25-year-old law student of murder and sentenced him to life in prison. The unrepentant killer responded with a shout: "The State of Israel is a monstrosity." One day later, a state commission faulted Israel's security service for ignoring warnings that Jewish extremists might attempt to harm Rabin to slow the peace process with Palestinians.
When she joined the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, Carol Mutter initially planned to serve a three-year stint. Twenty-eight years later, the Colorado native is set to become the highest-ranking woman in American military history. Last week, President Clinton nominated her to the rank of lieutenant general. As the lone woman among 107 male three-star officers, she will be responsible for Marine Corps manpower policy and planning. "Limitations," she said of her career, "were not a part of my vocabulary."
After William Bratton became New York City's police commissioner in 1994, homicides dropped nearly 40 percent and reports of serious crimes fell 27 percent. He won praise for adapting corporate management practices to police work, tracking crime patterns by computer and deploying officers accordingly. But as his approval ratings rose above Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's, tension flared. Last week, Bratton announced he was resigning to work for a private security firm. Fire Commissioner Howard Safir will replace him.
IN SPACE, NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SWEEP Technically, it's only a business trip 250 miles from home. But when she returns in August, Shannon Lucid will have spent more time in the weightless orbit of the Earth than any other American astronaut. Last week, the 53-year-old biochemist joined two Russian cosmonauts aboard the Russian space station Mir after a five-day hookup with the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis. In addition to scientific skills, she displayed a knack for diplomacy. Earthbound Russian Gen. Yuri Glazkov suggested that with Lucid on board, Mir's cleaning ventilation fans "will be taken care of in a more timely manner because we know that women love to clean." Her reply: "That kind of thinking doesn't bother me. We all work together to keep the place pretty tidy."
NO MORE SWEET TALK These are strange days in the nation's capital. Take the case of Bernice Harris, 58, a cashier at a Senate coffee shop. For 31 years, the great-grandmother from a farm in North Carolina hailed customers as "sweetie" and "honey." But last month, a young man working for Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, objected to being called "baby" and dashed off a letter accusing Harris of sexual harassment. Her supervisors tried to transfer her to a Capitol cafeteria but changed their minds after several senators and dozens of staffers from both parties protested. Last week, she returned to her old spot. Until she retires in May, she vows to bite her tongue for customers who prefer coffee without "sugar."
THE VISIONARY IN A PALO ALTO GARAGE It was the prototypical American success story. In 1938, two young Stanford University graduates decided to go into business together. They pooled $538, rented a garage in Palo Alto, Calif., and began tinkering with electronics. They developed a harmonica tuner that went nowhere. They designed a foot-fault indicator that bowling alleys didn't seem to want. And then William Hewlett and David Packard created a winner: the first commercial oscillator, an instrument that tests sound equipment. Buyers appeared, including Walt Disney's studio, which bought eight oscillators to help it develop its animated feature Fantasia. By the end of 1939, the Hewlett-Packard Co. had turned a $1,563 profit.
Within years, HP became a leading supplier of electronic instruments and testing equipment. Over a half century, it would become a $31 billion high-tech behemoth. To make it such, its creators hatched innovative ideas in distinctly different areas of corporate life: Hewlett, now 82, focused his energies on pathbreaking technology. Packard, who died last week at 83, tackled the increasingly onerous day-to-day operations.
Packard's chief legacy may be his management style. Even as HP expanded to 100,000 workers, he sought to maintain a small-company atmosphere. Divisions within the company operated like autonomous units, encouraging employees to work toward a shared objective while allowing freedom and internal competition. Believing that upper management should remain close to workers, the 6-foot-4 co-owner frequented HP's hallways to the point that employees jokingly awarded him a degree of M.B.W.A., Master by Walking Around.
The "HP Way" was widely imitated but not universally embraced. As deputy secretary of defense in the first Nixon administration, Packard found little support at the Pentagon for his management practices. "Working with the Washington bureaucracy was like pushing on one end of a 40-foot rope and trying to get the other end to do what you want," he recalled in his 1995 autobiography.
He remained active in GOP politics after returning to HP, where he presided as the company set its sights on the infant computer industry, much of which had sprouted in the region that came to be dubbed Silicon Valley. In 1972, HP debuted the first of its popular hand-held calculators. It soon branched into computers and, in 1984, into laser and ink-jet printers.
Packard never forgot his Depression-era upbringing--whether in personal frugality or in commitment to his employees. In 1990, he stepped out of semiretirement to help engineer a massive corporate overhaul that successfully averted the job losses that have since plagued high-tech companies. In fact, HP is one of only a few big U.S. firms to maintain a no-layoffs policy. "We weren't interested in the idea of making any money," he said of the company's humble beginnings. "Our idea was if you couldn't find a job, you'd make one for yourself."
DAVID PACKARD
Youth. Grew up in Pueblo, Colo. His father was a lawyer, his mother a teacher.
Education. Majored in electrical engineering at Stanford, where he lettered in football and basketball.
Family. His wife, Lucile, died in 1987. Survived by a son and three daughters.
Philanthropy. His stake in HP will go to his charitable foundation, pumping its assets to $6.6 billion.
This story appears in the April 8, 1996 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.