European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - January 29, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Page the stars and stripes thursday january 29, 19b7 columns comments human Factor Bof cries Mac i nes by Ellen Goodman in technical Emu am what a known As the human Factor so in you. Once upon a Lime we were just Plain people. Bui that was before we begin having relationships with mechanical systems. Get involved with a machine and sooner or later you Are reduced to a Factor. Today for example i am interacting this is what it s called with � word processor and an entire com pulverized system. No Nutter Bow perfect ii setup is.1 have the Power to botch up the results. From the Point of View of the machine 1 am the Loose Cannon the dubious and somewhat unpredictable human fac Tor in its life. If the processor thai i write on had a separate exis tence it would probably Send messages to its col leagues saying you won t believe what my human Factor did today. Coffee right Dawn the old key Board but on the whole 1 am not very dangerous Idaho wider world. Indeed the most common evil i spew Forth from this machine into the environment u a grammatical error. But what about the other human factors out there last week the National research Council reported with alarm thai there i virtually no safety research bring done by the nuclear regulatory commission on the human the focus has been on the physical plants they said and not on the people who design operate maintain and manage nuclear plants. I Kupect that it s like that almost everywhere. The i Iatter at chernobyl the near disaster at three mile Island each bad its human Factor and yet most of the original attention focused in on the build Ings the systems. The challenger explosion one year ago initially was billed As a technological disaster. Ii was a while before the inquiry shifted from the slate Otheo rings to the state of the decision makers. At Bhopal India where some 1,700 people died and at Basel Switzerland where the Rhine River was poisoned we heard first of chemical leaks and spills and impersonal safety we heard Only secondarily of workers who May not have sounded alarms or known enough nol o Hose chemicals. Even in the recent Low Lech am Ruk disaster the attention was first on the state of signals and Only then on the signal readers. I suppose there s a reason Tor our reluctance to focus on the human factors. But it is human factors who read nuclear Plant Blue prints backwards. Human factors who Cut Corners to meet deadlines and use lower Grade Concrete to save Money. Human factors who try to cover up errors. In my 3-o Stock in the morning fantasies of nuclear War i have one that features a series of improbable mis takes in some silo deep under the North Dakota Earth. I have another that shows a Light going on in the Whitehouse and a single Man who must without a Shower without a cup of Coffee without time for consultation or double checking decide whether or not to Send the missiles up. Such fantasies Are not reassuring. But during Daylight hours most of us choose to think of the human role in our sophisticated techno logical society As a minor part of the equation. We accept a walk on part in the modern world and give the machines the systems the Lead. Again and again in the Wake of a catastrophe we look for solution that will Correct it rather than the risks we live with particularly those of chemicals and atoms Are so enormous that it is com farting in believe people can people proof their lives. But it is illusory. Consult my computer if you Mutt but no machine ii More trustworthy than the humans who made it and operate it. So we Are stuck. Stuck Here in the High tech High risk world with our own Low tech species. Like Tor nol no mechanical system can Ever be More perfect than the sum of its very human factors. Al Beaton a. Comedy amid Iron arms foes Byar Buchwald not everything that happened during the iranian arms follies was tragedy. There were some Light to meats and they deserve to be noted. One of them was when the state department put the aim on the Sultan of Brunei for $ in million to help the contras. The Way they Tell it in the state department cafeteria assistant Secretary of stale Elliott Abrams thought up the notion of asking the Sultan to band Over a few Bucks for the anti Sand Nisla Campaign. The Sultan is said to be the richest Man in the world and there ii to much Oil in his country that Brunei children pour it on their Cereal in the morning. The Sultan who is very lonely agreed to give the Money provided Secretary of state George Shuli would Stop by Brunei and say hello. No problem Abrams said. Just Deposit the $10 million in this numbered Bank account in Switzerland. And Secretary Schuliz will be Happy to have a cup of Lea with you. Now Here is when things Start getting funny. The Sultan did As he was told and the Money was put in the Swiss Bank account. But his highness never got so much As a thank you note from the slate department. Every Lime the Sultan saw the ambassador to Brunei he winked at him but the us ambassador did not Wink Back. Finally the Sultan Ala reception said to the ambassador i know in in t much Money but could 1 gel a receipt for my s10 million so11 can deduct it from my income tax this started Bells ringing in the state department Abrams had been getting stories from his buddy Ollie North who owned the Swiss Bank account that no funds from Brunei had Ever been deposited. Bui when Abrams checked he found out the Money had not Only been put in Bui taken out without anyone knowing about it Ollie was either playing National hero or taking the stale department to the cleaners. What worries people in Washington is not what happened to the Money but what will happen to american relations with Brunei. How can the Sultan respect the Mott powerful nation in the world when it does t know How to launder Money to countries in the third world some people in Washington arc also conc enied As to Bow the re quest to the Sultan was made. Did Abrams ask for the Money in a Nice Way or did he say Okay Sultan give i $10 million or your tall ship will never pan the statue of Liberty again. And then there Are those who insist that Abrams sold out the United slates too cheap. One expert Crit ical of Abrams said ten million dollars is peanuts task Brunei and it sure in t Worth a Stopover by another question is Why was the state department using Ollie North s Swiss Bank account Why did t the slate department have an account of their own in the Bank across the Street from the american embassy in Bern then embassy employees could watch in incas a Marine corps colonel or a Navy Admiral made a withdrawal recently Abrams spent months keeping a Colombi an woman correspondent out of the United Stales because he claimed she was a marxist which she was t. Abrams was so Busy making sure she did t Gelin thai he had no time to devote to protecting the Sullan of Brunei s Money. The whole thing is embarrassing and officials at the state department have decided the Only Way to make in up to his highness i for George Shultz to go Back to Brunei and give the Sullan a new Bank account number if he promises to give us another 110 million 40 los agates ton Ana /kj06. 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