I'd tell your friends that it's best not to think about it too hard. It is a TV show after all.

.....That is fascinating, C. Carroll.....

From recollection, I thought that Pete and Don and Paul were all scheduled for the trip, and after the Creative Department meeting where Peggy basically completely overshadowed the guys, Don decided Paul would be staying home.

He said something like, "Did you even READ what she wrote? Maybe I should send HER to California."

I'd always wondered what Joan meant about "I'll need your badges," to Paul, and am very glad you clarified that, and much more.

As has been said here before, there is no minutiae too trivial for the Maddicts!

That's what make them Maddicts, Trekies,etc. It's the attention to detail of the television show. Somewhat like groupies that follow the The Jonas Brothers or Amy Winehouse to every concert or sit in line when a new CD comes out. The differences is the mentality of these Maddicts, they understand the machine. The time period alone sets them in a special frame of mind and puts them all in a very comfortable place. Most of all they are sharp as a tack, well verses and well connected. You don't find such an elite group of people. They agree, disagree, ignore you, have a cocktail,a cup of coffee or a spot of tea and that's the end of it. The wonderful thing is everyone brings something special to the table. Things you would never think of. So by the next time you watch the show you can enjoy it from a different perspective.
Yeah, it's only a tv show, but what a show it is!

C. Carroll, there is one thing that has always bothered me about that whole trip to California, and I would be interested in your opinion. I grew up in Huntsville AL in the 50s-60s, where the whole economy revolved around Nasa and the space race, so it's close to my heart. (And the walk on the moon took place 40 years ago today! Time to go back, America!)

Anyway, my concern is that I don't think that guys from an advertising agency (that didn't even have an account with one of the contractors, much less!) would even be allowed into meetings that required "badges, etc". Like you say, one must suspend disbelief, but I thought that was pretty far-fetched. What do you think?

Mambo Deb brings up an interesting point, but first let me say that Don only decided to replace Paul on the California trip once Don wanted to get out of town. Originally it was just Pete and Paul, Accounts and Creative. Given that in 1962 Betty Jane Williams was President of the Information Film Producers Association, the trade group of defense/aerospace media, it might have actually made business sense to have sent Peggy.

Our movie studio became a secure classified producer of defense training material on 8 December 1941, largely because we were a couple of miles down the street from a major aircraft manufacturer. Many of the veterans from that WWII department had become top executives in the defense industry. With the start of the late 1950s defense missile industry several of those executives asked our studio to re-activate our classified briefing department. By luck I returned to the studio in 1959 after an active duty tour as an officer in the USMC. I was assigned by the studio to select a team of communicators already cleared. Because of the long-standing business relationship between our studio and the large manufacturer we did not need to solicit business as would an outside advertising shop such as SC.
Mad Men does get it correct that all the defense contractors wanted a larger share of contracts and were very motivated to hire ad shops. Prior to WWII the aircraft companies used major ad shops. They would have invited agencies such as SC to participate at industry conventions (before the more PC term "conference" became popular).
The important detail is that prior to sending sales teams to such events, the ad shops needed to establish a team of cleared individuals and set up a physical facility that met defense security requirements. In those days it was the FBI who did the background checks. Paul probably would have been considered a left-leaning security risk, while Pete probably would have easily been cleared. Don would have been quickly identified as Dick Whitman, not Lt. Don Draper.

Mambo Deb, back in the 1950s were you old enough to discuss the need to keep secrets with the Huntsville rocket folks? As I got to know defense folks their thinking about keeping secrets reminded me about the care our studio took to keep our scripts confidential. It was a point of honor we did not blab, so we were circumspect when approached by strangers. Certainly on The Sopranos Matt W learned the advantage of keeping plot secret and much of the Mad men magic is the anticipation.

Look, I am such a MM fan that I never even considered the clearance issues the first several times I watched Jet Set. Remember there was a saying popular in 1962 that every spy caught in the USA had at one time been cleared by the FBI, so maybe the Dick W/Don D fingerprints fell through a crack? Mistakes do happen!

Growing up, I think we learned by osmosis that our fathers could never discuss their work; none of us ever questioned it. My father was a chemist with a private contractor and worked on Redstone Arsenal. Whenever we asked him what he did at work, as kids do, he would laugh and say "We play cards and drink coffee"; in fact, he brought home a snapshot of himself and a few of the guys on his team playing cards, since it was such a joke. I don't know if the picture was staged, or if they really spent time goofing off while "brainstorming" (he's gone now, so I can't ask). It looked like a legitimately spontaneous picture. We learned many years later that his team was working to develop new rocket fuels. The lab next to theirs blew up on one occasion and one man lost a finger (which my father said turned out to be a good thing, because it improved his golf grip).

Probably in the early 60s a neighbor down the street (who was also my best friend's father) who worked for NASA was going to join Von Braun's team. My mother said an FBI agent came to the door and asked her all sorts of questions about him, like did he drink, did he run around with women, etc. It was pretty funny because he was the nicest, most straight-arrow family man you'd ever want to meet.

Well, I got more, but I don't want to bore anybody. And I'm like you, C.Carroll, it didn't occur to me to question the SC trip to Palm Springs until just recently; the anniversary of the moon landing always gets me to thinking of space! I'm looking forward to seeing that episode again.

.....Thank you. Those are pretty much all the answers for which I was looking.

The days before computers and the world wide web.....they should have hired you as a consultant!

Fascinating conversation! Zabadu, this is not a TV show. M/M is real and happening in some alternate universe.

Wow, interesting info, there, C Carroll and Mambo, nope not "boring" at all...to me, anyway....I love all the Maddicts' detours into childhood memories and/or "real life" connections to the Mad Men World.

Highly interesting reading!

So Mambo.... do chime in on this question...

Now that it's been 40 years since the Moon Landing, are you in the camp that believe it actually happened? Or, given the (non) technology of its day and more recent information that says there's no penetrating a radiation shield, no other country has since gone to the moon, American never even went back to the moon, etc., do you believe we landed on the moon? Or is it a GIGANTIC cover-up, so we were able to save face with the Russians by "meeting" JFK's challenge in 1962 to put a man on the moon by the end of the century?

I don't believe in big secrets. The truth will out once more than two people know something. Somebody always talks, especially if offered enough money. If it was all a hoax, somebody would have squealed by now.

I definitely think we went to the moon. For one thing, there were thousands and thousands of employees that worked toward that end. I guess they could have been duped by some huge conspiracy, and their efforts were actually for nothing, but like Z says, it couldn't possibly have been kept a secret. People say the government can't deliver health care, yet they think it can create and maintain for 50 years a fiction like that? And where's the studio that the "fake" landing was fimed in? No, someone would have talked somewhere, sometime; imagine what a deathbed confession that would be!

And, Laurie, I don't know what you mean by "not penetrating a radiation shield". Objects (meteors, asteroids) enter Earth's atmosphere all the time. That's what a shooting star is; they usually burn up before they reach Earth, but some make it. There are documented accounts of meteors falling through people's roof. One landed on a woman sitting on her sofa years ago. So, with proper protection (a la the shields on the space shuttle) a rocket could leave earth and the capsule could return (which the shuttle does). And the moon has very little atmosphere to worry about. That's why the astronauts wore space suits.

I just read one reason, besides budget cuts, that the space program was virtually shut down, was because the moon landing had been achieved so quickly, space travel really wasn't safe at that time (supposedly a miracle more astronauts weren't killed). They had gone from A to B to E, skipping steps, in efforts to get to the moon by the end of the 60s. They really needed to go back and kind of re-create the wheel, and they weren't willing to do that.

Well, I've always believed we went...but, then I'm pretty gullible....

I'll take your word for it, Mambo, since you had family (your Dad) on the inside track, so to speak...plus I certainly agree with the spill the old guts for cash routine..."enough" geetus tends to definitely loosen lips...and jog memories.

And Laurie, you never said if you believed we went (to the moon or not)...well, do ya? Just wonderin'.

C. Carroll and Mambo Deb,
Just a note of thanks. I was a baby when Alan Shepard made history, and received a John Glenn doll when he made his 1962 orbits. One of my friends with whom I "watched" the 1969 moon landing in my front yard is now at work to be a Teacher in Space. My uncle, a retired Navy commander, knows Jim Lovell, and I've hounded my uncle to the point of embarrassment for the Apollo 13 hero's autograph. Suffice to say, your comments are treasures. They add richness and depth to this forum.

For what it's worth, my husband has a couple of degrees from the University of Chicago, where work on The Bomb was conducted under what was then the football field. According to him, one would pretty much have to have submitted a firstborn child to be admitted to the area. Not that the presence of ad agencies was requested during this process - the mind reels. I have not been inhibited by the bounds of good taste to create inappropriate slogans in previous submissions, but I'll just sign off here...

Yes, Catty, I hope MM doesn't jump the shark on this space connection. Besides, even if an agency had an advertising account with a company involved in the aerospace industry, I would think the agency's knowledge of the the company's mission would be pretty limited and basic. Like Dow Chemical's old slogan: "Better Living through Chemistry"; I mean, really, what does that mean? Nothing.

I think maybe that was DuPont's slogan, Mambo ("Better Living Through Chemistry")

Dow's is "Bringing Good Things to Life" -- or something like that. (?)

At any rate, I don't agree that plastics are a positive influence on people's health.

That last sentence sounds like I'm disagreeing with someone's statement about plastics...I should have worded it that I think the invention of plastics coincided with the rise in cancer cases, which is just my personal opinion. Chemistry has made many positive contributions to society, but I don't think plastics (in spite of the famous line in "The Graduate") is one of them. Having said that, I would hate to go back in time and try to live without my Tupperware.

ha?

I do believe you are right about the DuPont slogan, SC. And I know what you mean about plastics; couldn't live without em! And of course, chemistry has been invaluable to our life today. But you're right, there have been some unintended negative consequences with a lot of products.