15480 Albright Street and München

1969-72

 Sometime in June, after the rains had stopped, we moved into our new, own house. It had much in common with the Mandeville house, on a promontory above the dead-end of Albright Street under a huge California sycamore - which was a major attraction, it was in walking distance of the children's schools, the doctors, supermarkets, cleaners, and stores in Pacific Palisades "village," something which would twenty years later convince us to stay there....

It too had an odd L-shape floor plan and a little garden in back with an olive tree. High hedges and trees in the back gave us complete privacy from our close neighbors. From the glass windows of the living room extended a sweeping view of the Pacific - almost as wide as on Kingsport Drive - and allowed for fabulous sunsets in December. The original builder was the owner of a hardware store, it had solid plumbing and a hot-water floor heating which would just keep us warm in a cold winter night - but its inside was petit bourgeois.... From the very beginning I began redesigning it - most of which had, however, to wait for several of years - we were nearly broke!

With a large piece of Marimekko and a new, oversized Japanese paper lamp, we soon coverted the living room to our taste. As you see, we did not have a sofa at that time, and the closets under the windows still had their original doors. The open beam ceiling was stained a battle-ship gray.... After we returned from München in 1972 Barbara and I spent two weeks stripping the ceiling and oiling it(!), we took all the doors off the under-the-window closets, and opened up the closets between the kitchen and the dining area - which made the space of the living area appear much larger.

Eventually I made a new, bigger bed for Susanne who was growing fast, and we used the box bed, I had made for her, as living-room sofa. In those years the living room had a wall with a door and a window to a forever dirty back-porch encased in fly screening and covered by a corrugated-plastic roof - the eye-sore of the house.The narrow door in the corner leads to our bedrooms, though much widened, it is today still located where it was then. - The rug , the typewriter and the cushion show that ththe last picture was taken in 1973 when I spent many weeks sitting on that cushion writing a guide to the Baroque churches of Bavaria for Anik Girard and listening to Mozart quartetts.... I was badly homesick for Bavaria - but nobody wanted the wild American in their lab.

When I look at the old date books I find that despite our home sickness for Bavarian our life continued as turbulent and colorful as ever. Old and new friends: Dietlind and Ray Giles, Connie Call and her husband, Fritzi and Fred Culick from Pasadena, Susanne and Eddy Willumsen around the corner, Rex and Elsa Pay (all people who Susanne will remember), we went to chamber concerts at the Wilshire-Ebell with Hartmut and Karla Keller, Gerry and Nancy Bott came often, Traudl and John Friedmann returned from two years in Chile to UCLA and bought a house on Kenter Canyon, Gerhard and Anneliese had settled in Palos Verdes, Robert and Illa Forrest took a job in Santa Barbara, Marianne Daeg and Jürgen Budke got married and moved to LA..... All went in and out of our house. There were uncounted dinner parties - Barbara had turned into a fabulous French cook - and days on the beach together or at Traudl's swimming pool.... And some people came and stayed for weeks with us, like Julia Euling and Sigrid and Ralf Damm, friends of Marianne from Stuttgart, or my brother Dieter and Evelyn from Berlin. We took them camping on Mt. Thomas near Idylwild and to the desert near Palm Springs:

Cornelius had learned to keep his big head from hitting glass walls or the ground. He had become a fast and nimble fellow.

Barbara introduced us to skiing - if one disregards my 15-years earlier skiing - Elsa Pay, who grew up in the Swiss mountains provided valuable ideological support - so we went into the Los Angeles Crest Forrest on the north-eastern side of the mountains overlooking the desert, 2300-m high and 1-1/2 hours from our door steps......  

Susanne needed a bigger room and her own privacy, she was 10. The garage was large enough for 2 cars. On 4^th of July 1970 Barbara and I took the garage door off its hinges, and I spent every evening, every week-end and uncounted hours learning how to ancker wall footings to the pad on which the house stood, cover the open walls with plasterboard, install electric conduits in the walls, even how to set the glass panes in the windows..... A consuming labor. By Summer 1971 Susanne could move in, only her separate bath was not yet finished. Cornelius took up residence in the trash cans. And I had exchanged the faithful blue VW Bug against a fashionable BMW 1600.

 Christmas 1969 Barbara in Germany

On 17 December Barbara flew to Germany for her father's birthday (December 24). She had made careful arrangements for Susanne and Cornelius to be picked up or taken care of by someone during the day when I was at work. In the evenings and on week-ends I cooked and took care of them. It was a sad Christmas for us, but father Lattmann's greatest wish was to have her and all other Lattmann family members around him. She came back on January 17.

On September 27, 1970 as I drove home from work an ominous smoke cloud rose above the hills behind Pacific Palisades. I raced home, people were standing on the streets watching the cloud grow rapidly, a long tail extended for miles out to the Pacific blocking the sun - a feared brush fire. It was raining Ash like snow - but the fire raced down to the ocean on the other side of Topanga burning a few houses in Malibu - we were spared until 1975 when we escaped only narrowly....

And then in February of 1971 very early in the morning the great earthquake in San Fernando Valley shook us out of our sleep. Barbara ran to collect the sleeping children and take them outside. By the time I realized what was happening the first big jolt was over. There was no damage at our house, but at the Botts in Westwood various fixtures had been shaken loose, and the new freeway intersection in Sylmar collapsed. Wearily we counted the aftershocks.... California!

The Chemical Laser at Aerospace Corp.

During 1969 my work at Aerospace had reached a critical point. Our exploratory work had shown a way to build a very powerful continuous laser. Ted Jacobs, my boss, and I had drawn a number of fellow researchers into this work - and had found Air Force and Aerospace money to pursue the device vigorously. One morning two sharp, young Air Force captains appeared and asked me to show them the experiment. I was alone with two technicians, set up the test, and when we turned the machine on - nothing happened. I was quite distressed. We all looked carefully at the complicated set up. I could find nothing wrong. The captains abruptly caught the next flight home. Four hours later we received a telephone call which classified the entire experiment as secret. The last thing we needed or wanted. The captains had seen what I hadn't, we had burned out both mirrors of the laser.... - A decisive success.

Rumors about our work rapidly spread further than expected. In the Spring of 1970 I received an invitation to an international symposium on chemical lasers from Prof. N. G. Basov - Nobel Laureate, Academician, and director of the Lebedev Institute in Moscow! After protracted negotiations with my management and the Air Force, I was permitted to go - the curiosity of what the Soviets were up to was too large. Under strict instructions of what I could and what I could not talk about I flew to Moscow in September 1970.

This trip to Russia set into motion an entirely separate, very personal search for my past and inner psychological mechanisms. In Moscow I encountered all my post-war traumata and fears. Every time I saw a Soviet uniform I froze. The hour at Moscow airport, before my return flight to London was sheer hell. I decided that I had to return to explore and clear out these fears. And there was another aspect, on the last weekend in Moscow I had persuaded Evghenei Kudriavtsev, one of my Russian colleges, to drive me to Zagorsk, the historical monastery outside of Moscow from where Russia had started. Because Genya had just made his driver's licence he was very nervous, and the trip became an experience on several levels. Already in Moscow Genya drove down a one-way street in the wrong direction. Outside town the women at a gas station tried to arrest us because I had taken a photo of them... Twenty years later I would find out that Genya was the son of a high KGB officer - and had had no permission to take me outside town. - The churches of Zagorsk were filled with pilgrims, old women kissing the floor before the famous icons, and a fabulous male choir singing the Friday service. Genya was as overwhelmed and puzzled by the discovery of Russian religosity as I was.... I understood Genya's anti-religious hang-ups, but what was my connection to these heavy emotions? Why should I be so profoundly effected? For months Mother Russia would follow me in my dreams - and Genya became one of the most faithful of my Russian friends.

In the winter of 1970/71 we were visited at Aerospace by several highly placed advisors to the government. I only remember the morning Edward Teller appeared. He slapped me on the shoulder and with his heavy German accent said, "Very good work. Continue. This is more important than the atomic bomb...." I only noticed the dandruff on his shoulders.... In time Teller convinced the government that lasers were a potential weapon against Soviet missiles which eventually led to the famous Star Wars Initiative of the Reagan administration. It was all very dramatic 

The tensions at the lab - trying to drive the research further, keeping the Air Force happy, and at the same time holding their heavy arm at bay - became so high that I began suffering from attacks of heart palpitations, threatening several times to pass me out. The doctor could never catch one - "Just a few missing beats, no reason for concern...." I learned to disregard these episodes. One early morning an Aerospace vice president appeared. Again I was the only person in the lab. He began shouting at me, that he would take his support away and have me moved to a different division, if we got ourselves classified by the Air Force... I was stunned. Angrily I decided that this was going too far. I needed a break.

One of the participants at the Moscow symposium had been Karl Kompa, the original discoverer of the hydrogen-fluorine (HF) laser which had been the basis of our work at Aerospace. I had talked to him about a sabbatical year at his lab in Munich. He enthusiastically invited me. I now wrote to him, and within three weeks we agreed on the terms of such an arrangement. With an official invitation from Kompa in my hand I told Wally Warren, my departmental boss that I wanted to "drink German beer in historical places." He understood and to my complete surprise offered to pay the difference between my Munich pay and my salary at Aerospace.... Barbara and I were in agreement that we would not burden our minds with the complicated question of staying in Germany, just make the year a grand vacation. Within a few weeks everything was arranged. - Wally was convinced he would never see me again. I would prove him wrong.

We sold both cars, leased the house for $1500 per month, stored our precious personal possessions in Susanna's unfinished bathroom, ordered a new Volkswagen in Wolfsburg, and flew to Germany. Barbara and the children left in August 71, a couple of weeks before me. Barbara deposited Cornelius with Marga and her father, Susanne with Lilo and Klaus in Hamburg, picked up the car and drove to München - where we bought a cheap flight to Athens.... Against all warnings by my father that I should not try to repeat the experiences of 1953, I was determined to show Barbara the land of my dreams. I had never been in the Aegean Islands, that was were we went.

Athens wallowed in worse smog than LA. We took the first boat we could find next morning, it sailed to Mykonos....  

Greece with Barbara, the Cycladian Islands for the First Time

More pictures from this wonderful trip: The Greek Islands with Barbara September 1971

I remember the night boat from Ios back to Athens as the most terrible sea journey ever. The wind blew stiff from the northeast and the breakers were frightening. The old boat traveled from the wind shadow behind one islands to the next only to be hit by the waves in the open stretches with incredible force. To hide from the wind and the breakers we had secured a bench to lie down on the upper-most deck. The stars above us danced in wild abandon. All the beautiful children were miserably sick. Barbara had to pull a passed-out young man out in order to getr into the only toilet.... With much concentration we survived - but for the next day we swayed and stumbled even on solid ground.

Garching, München, and Bavaria

Our 18-month stay in München now has its own page: Susannes Bavaria 1972

Here are a few photos to whet your interest. 

Istria August 1972

 During the München Olympis we fled to Istria in Yugoslavia, where Andrea von Ramm, a friend of Maibi Michel-Beyerle, had rented us an old house in Grosnjan for the summer. We took Susanna's friend Monica Willumsen along. They had a splendid time together.

During our absence in Istria München was swept up in the 1972 Olympics, which ended in the horrifying murder of the Israeli athlets. It had begun as a beautiful fest for all nations Bavarian style with clowns, outdoor theater, and other improvised productions.... 

 In September we ordered an American-model BMW 2002. The entire family went to pick up the shocking-orange driving machine at the factory. We had to be careful driving in it, during this Fall the police was hunting for the Baader-Meinhof terrorists who made their escapes preferentially in BMWs and 2 people had been shot for not stopping when ordered to....

Late in December 1971 Barbara and the children flew to Los Angeles, while I spent another week in Moscow. We had sent the yellow VW to LA ahead of us, Gerhard picked it up at the the harbor. I found the BMW in Gelnhausen where Barbara had left it, drove it back to München, and finally flew to Los Angeles.

Rarely did our house look so good than after this long absence. A week later we celebrated Christmas our way with a wild seven-foot tree which we had selected together at the LA railroad yards. In January we started to redo the living room, the old carpet had been chewed up by the dog of the last renters. I finished Susanne's bathroom with the help of a plumber. Her own room was a great success.