Opinion | A Job Hunter Never Passes Up a Chance (2024)

Instead, I pick up daughter Corinna at Union Station, quietly triumphant after finishing her sophom*ore year at Barnard College in good style. We wonder about the plans of oldest son Andy, ending his junior year at Kenyon. Sunday

Younger sons Brian and Larry and I debate new schools for them next year; inconclusive. Larry seems more ready to accept boarding school and its discipline. Brian likes the idea of the New School for Social Research in New York for a freshman year.

I take the bus to the Kings' law office, to sit yet another week as their guest while pursuing my quest. Monday

I reflect on my last 28 years: Joining the CIA after graduating from Harvard at the height of the Korean War; years abroad; divorce and long years in Langley precluding further Agency advancement; retirement from the agency in late 1977 as planned with the law as the basis for a second career; conversations a year ago with 65 larger law firms which couldn't consider taking on someone the age of the partners and putting him with the associates, though that wouldn't have bothered me. I am grateful to the Kings for the chance to work full time with them, but now I seek broader responsibilities (and need a higher income) than anyone can give the novice lawyer.

I begin my daily routine of telephone calls, reaching about 15 people as a followup to mailings of resumes, etc. I never ask for a job straight out, which saves embarrassment on both sides. I write to the board chairman of Bell Telephone Labs in New Jersey. Nothing ventured . . . Bernie Carr, my law school friend, cancels lunch because his current senior at Fried, Frank has him running.

On the bus home, I meet Fran Macy, old friend and comrade-in-arms from our McLean Gardens zoning fight of the early '70s. He is working downtown in a consulting capacity, so I give him my resume and we agree to have lunch soon.

I run for 65 minutes without pause through a gorgeous sunset on the Bethesda Chevy Chase Rec Center field. That tops my life record by 20 minutes, made just last Saturday. I feel great at the end. Not bad for 49 and the fifth or sixth run of the spring.

I call Bill Barton of International Business-Government Counsellors, with whom I have talked about a place in his enterprise. He is commplimentary but says he has chosen someone younger with more impressive academic credentials. I am disappointed, and wonder if he will now use all those good ideas I gave him without using me. Tuesday

My lunch with a Washington rep is off because of a last-minute committee hearing call from the Hill. I regret that, because we want to talk about organizing one's own corporation to personally represent several companies not now here.

My office host, Rufus King III, says the Kings will move into their new offices in two weeks, and new people will take my place. The Kings have been princes to me over the last five months. I call 15 people and write a few letters. I talk with Bob McElwaine of the Imported Car Dealers, who suggests I write to Mercedes Benz and BMW and Daniel Edelman Associates, and is very cordial; nothing for me in his office.

I meet Fredda of Career Change Services in Chevy Chase and get the names of the 720 of the Fortune 1,000 companies which her research shows do not have personal reps in Washington. I sign letters to the last 46 heads of corporate offices here that Fredda can find. I'll call them in the next week or two, and maybe add more scouts in my search, and maybe hear of a job? My Master Charge line of credit must be reaching its limits. I spend much of the evening typing the names of most of the 720. I am cheered by the arrival of my Maryland income tax refund.

The boys and I clean out part of the mess in the garage. No word from the owner if we can continue to rent through the summer or must leave when the lease expires on July 1. Clearly I won't need the house if both Brian and Larry go away to school; I certainly won't afford it. Wednesday

Beautiful morning, but discover the cats have dragged a dead bird in through the open front door and then fought over it in the living room. I talk with Helen Shanks of the Washington Ethical Society School about tommorrow night's school meeting. I also talk with a pleasant woman in North Haven, Conn., about quick school guidance for Brian and Larry, and we set a time of interviews.

I make about 10 calls. I have lunch with David Brown of Monsanto. He has kind words for my CORINNA Corporation to represent corporations (daughteer Corinna likes the name, which makes an inspired acronym: Corporate Representation in North America). I decide to send the ideas I gave to Bill Barton to Tony Stout of Government Research Corporation and Jim Bullard of Congressional Quarterly and Mike Dunn of his own Associates and anyone else I can, hoping through someone to get the chance to carry out my own ideas.

I go to a reception in the House hosted by Rep. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) to honor 82-year-old Clarence Streit of "Union Now" and Atlantic Community fame. I introduce myself to Rep. Henry Reuss (D-Wis.) and to a familiar figure who turns out to be ex-Rep. Jim Symington, now a downtown lawyer, and we talk about national and Democratic Party fortunes. I give him any resume. Rule 1 in job-hunting is never to pass up a chance to give him my resume; if you are embarrassed to do so, get over that fast.

Bernie Corr has called earlier in the day to report that the results from February's bar exam are in the mail. I pass! I call Bernie in jubilation, and he has to remind me to congratulate him, too. It is almost five years since I began to process of late law school. I can to tell the boys and Corinna and my ex-wife, who is entertaining the children at supper tonight; she and they are pleased. She and I are on civil terms, though not such good friends as Alice Rivlin and her ex. Thursday

A big day on the telephone; I call about 20 people. No jobs, but more cordial conversations. A law school friend, Dennis Wiggins, passed the bar, offers me a place to sit in the offices of his Mortgage Data Service. I welcome his invitation to join in when he receives a Chase Manhattan inquirer next week. I am delighted to be able to maintain a base downtown.

At home I find a note from Ambassador Sol Linowitz, an old family friend, responding to my note on the CORINNA Corporation. He wishes me well. One more corporate office chief writes to say thanks, but no. My collection of impressed "no" letters is now about 50. Only in two instances has my 26 year first career in the CIA been raised as a disqualifying factor, which pleases me; though I wonder if it actually plays a larger role than I know. Among the most kind of my talking partners have been several former Agency officers now engaged downtown. Friday

I have a cordial morning conversation with Jim Murphy (all my conversations are cordial). He is a Washington lawyer and wartime OSS officer. He thinks William J. Casey, formerly of OSS, the State Department and the Ex-Im Bank, would be someone to write to; I shall do so.

I forego making calls today, and have lunch in Chinatown to celebrate the bar exam triumph. Then I dash via Metro to National Airport to catch a flight to Rochester for a weekend filial visit. Brother Steve meets me, and we begin a weekend-long dialogue on prospecting in Washington. His years there with New York's Sen. Ken Keating left him with many friends and contacts which I draw on. Saturday

Mother and I are up early to go to Highland Park, scene of more varieties of lilacs than anywhere else in the world. We walk the whole circumference of the park. The lilacs are as spectacular as I remember them 40 years ago.

I call Tom Gosnell, acquaintance of years past. He is the chief exec of Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Company, whose books everyone uses in law school. I learned 10 days earlier that Lawyers Coop owns the Research Institute of America, to whose Washington office I was directed, so I had written to Tom. He says he has asked the RIA people to review my resume, etc. I tell him I hope to talk with RIA's Leonard Tennyson in Washington soon. CAPTION: Picture, Christopher May, 49, a native of Rochester, N.Y., joined the Central Intelligence Agency shortly after his graduation from Harvard College in 1951. After retiring from the CIA in 1977, he attended Georgetown Law School, from which he graduated last year.