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James Fallows

James Fallows - James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively from outside the United States, and once worked as President Carter's chief speechwriter. His latest book, China Airborne, will be published in May.
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James Fallows is based in Washington as a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He has worked for the magazine for nearly 30 years and in that time has also lived in Seattle, Berkeley, Austin, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, and Beijing. He was raised in Redlands, California, received his undergraduate degree in American history and literature from Harvard, and received a graduate degree in economics from Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. In addition to working for The Atlantic, he has spent two years as chief White House speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, two years as the editor of US News & World Report, and six months as a program designer at Microsoft. He is an instrument-rated private pilot. He is also now the chair in U.S. media at the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, in Australia.

Fallows has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award five times and has won once; he has also won the American Book Award for nonfiction and a N.Y. Emmy award for the documentary series Doing Business in China. He was the founding chairman of the New America Foundation. His two most recent books, Blind Into Baghdad (2006) and Postcards From Tomorrow Square (2009), are based on his writings for The Atlantic; he is at work on another book about China. He is married to Deborah Fallows, author of the recent book Dreaming in Chinese. They have two married sons.

Fallows welcomes and frequently quotes from reader mail sent via the "Email" button below. Unless you specify otherwise, we consider any incoming mail available for possible quotation -- but not with the sender's real name unless you explicitly state that it may be used. If you are wondering why Fallows does not use a "Comments" field below his posts, please see previous explanations here and here.

Correction: No ROTC at Stanford

By James Fallows
May 25 2010, 10:23 PM ET

Earlier today I quoted a reader who said that Army ROTC had returned to Stanford. It turns out that that is not exactly so. Like Harvard, Stanford has an "off-campus" program. Students may be members of ROTC, but they go elsewhere for training. Reader Michael Segal writes:
The statement made by a member of Advocates for Harvard ROTC that "Stanford University already has Army ROTC" is not true  We summarize the situation at: http://www.advocatesforrotc.org/national/

Stanford: (Off-campus Navy, Army and Air Force ROTC, no university-sponsored ROTC Web page)

The confusion may be with UC Berkeley, which has both Army and Navy ROTC, or the writer may have heard of the committee at Stanford examining inviting ROTC to return.  Also, it is not clear whether this week's effort to repeal DADT will succeed, and what the effect will be if it does succeed.  I outlined some of the nuances at http://www.securenation.org/a-centrist-approach-to-reform-of-%E2%80%9Cdon%E2%80%99t-ask-don%E2%80%99t-tell%E2%80%9D/, with some updates for this week's events.
 
Michael Segal '76 MD PhD
 
  • 21 May 2010 Boston Globe article "Harvard's ROTC grads to get full treatment in Yard commissioning".  Note:  Speaking at Harvard ROTC Commissioning on 26 May will be Michael G. Vickers, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, depicted in the film Charlie Wilson's War, former US Senator Paul Kirk '60 and Harvard President Drew Faust. 
Noted for the record. Another reader writes to say:
As someone who went the ROTC route (thanks to a full scholarship!) and has now served almost 21 years in the Air Force I have to completely agree with the National Defense author: "increasing estrangement of the professionalized military from the rest of society was dangerous for democracy in the long run"

I think this was well captured by the attached picture you've probably seen, which made the rounds a few years ago.
atthemall.png

After the jump, another Stanford student on the situation there.
____


I am a student at Stanford and I would like to clear up a reader comment you quoted in "Three about DADT, ROTC, and the Ivies." We currently do not have any ROTC groups on campus - although there is increasing debate whether or not to allow them back on campus. There are Stanford students participating in ROTC programs, but they have to commute to other schools in the area (such as San Jose State or UC Berkeley - both at least 30 minutes away). Here is a May 5th article from the Stanford Daily about a recent Faculty Senate discussion (with presentations by former Sec. of Defense William Perry and Prof. David Kennedy)  and an article about a a recent student panel on the subject.
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