Dear Friends,

At this time of the year Pat and I would like to send our Christmas greetings and our Best Wishes for the New Year.

This past year has looked with favor upon us and both of us and our entire family are in good health and are looking forward to the excitements and challenges of the New Year. We know that at our ages future years may not look upon us so kindly, but we are prepared for whatever may come.

Since our retirements 16 years ago we have enjoyed our free time and may have become hedonists to some extent, and pursuing the pleasure principle has not been unpleasant. We have enjoyed traveling and plan to continue this interest so long as our health and wallet permits. Two trips to Europe occupied our summer, one to Belgium (Nato & Shafe) and France and Great Britain to visit their Depts. of Defense and the other to Alsace and Southwest Germany on a wine appreciation tour. In September we joined our companions in D.O.C.A. and spent several days in our nation's capitol acquainting ourselves with the state of health of our Department of Defense and our Foreign Policy.

This January will find us en route to Delray Beach, Florida to spend four months at our condominium; Pat welcomes this change from the cold weather as it helps to make her arthritis a bit more tolerable. I'm more comfortable in Manchester.

At this stage in our lives when the sun is rapidly setting in the west we appreciate more than ever the role that friendships play in our lives and how much they add to the meaningfulness of Life. Hearing from friends again provides many pleasant reminiscences. We all have our family members, our neighbors, our travel companions and our acquaintances from here, there and everywhere to keep in touch with and they are important. The many fascinating friends that we have met in the Defense Orientation Conference Association have added greatly to our joy of living.

Perhaps our greatest pleasure is in seeing our children prosper and our grandchildren grow up into responsible, disciplined and constructive members of the human community. One certainly can not ask for anything more!

At the present time my major interest has been to foster the concept of World Federalism. To me it is the only rational approach to world peace. There is no peace without justice, no justice without law, and no law without government. All that is needed is to raise law to the international level! Years ago I endeavored to reach this objective through supporting the Temple of Understanding, a beautifully conceived idea of erecting a temple housing chapels and libraries representative of the world's six major religions on the bank of the Potomac river in Washington D.C. Unfortunately, it never came to pass. Since then I've decided religions are more divisive than unifying.

Charlie and Pat