Notes

Several months ago we sent out a letter to REASON readers advising that foundation support for the magazine's investigative journalism program was being reduced. I'm pleased to report that hundreds of you responded with contributions. Controller John Northrup assures me that we can now continue the costly but invaluable investigative journalism program throughout 1984. All of us here at REASON appreciate your loyal support.

One result of that investigative journalism program is Jack Wheeler's cover story in this issue. Media interest in Jack's findings has been great. Even before he'd completed his first draft of the article, he'd been a guest on both the Michael Jackson and Merv Griffin programs and taped several commentaries for the Voice of America. Late in January he did the Ray Briem show on the ABC radio network and the George Putnam show in Los Angeles. And on January 26 he had a letter on Angola in the Wall Street Journal.

Other stories currently under way thanks to the Reason Foundation Investigative Journalism Fund include:

• a report on entrepreneurs who are flouting the regulators' prohibition of jitneys in a major American city, and

• a case study of how government funding of health care is leading doctors to recommend a medical treatment against their better judgment.

And Jack Wheeler is hard at work on the second installment of his "Fighting the Soviet Imperialists" series.

January 26 was REASON day at the Wall Street Journal In addition to Jack Wheeler's letter, the op-ed pages included an excerpt from REASON's January interview with Nobel laureate George Stigler, a piece by Reason Foundation Advisory Board member Martin Anderson on Cabinet government, and a piece by REASON Contributing Editor Bruce Bartlett debunking the idea that the 5¢-a-gallon gasoline increase passed in December 1982 was a "jobs bill."

REASON contributors continue to get around. Free-lancer Randy Fitzgerald had an article in the December Reader's Digest on the remarkably successful efforts in Delaware to control the growth of government. Fitzgerald was also a principal author of the Grace Commission report "The Cost of Congressional Encroachment." Contributing Editor Tom Hazlett continues to be a prolific writer, with his latest effort a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece on the great (but unappreciated) economist W.H. Hutt. Reason Foundation Advisory Board member and frequent REASON contributor Steve Hanke has become a senior fellow at the free-market-oriented Manhattan Institute, in New York City. And Contributing Editor Bruce Bartlett is moving from being executive director of the Joint Economic Committee to a position on the White House policy development staff. Finally, our own managing editor, Eric Marti, has received honorable mention for his December 1982 REASON article, "Self-Help Housing," in the Golden Hammer Awards Competition sponsored by the National Association of Home Builders.

—R.W.P.

Jack Wheeler, the author of "How to Dismantle the Soviet Empire" in REASON's November 1983 issue, appears again this month with the cover story that begins on page 22. Even as we were preparing his earlier article on the potential of ethnic national-liberation movements within the Soviet Union, Jack was off on a five-month REASON investigation of the relatively new phenomenon of Third World guerrilla movements that, far from being inspired by Marxist ideology and supported by the long arm of the Soviet Union, are trying to free their countries of Soviet occupation or Soviet-backed Marxist governments. Jack's investigation took him to Central America, Afghanistan, and Angola; he also met in Africa with insurgents from Mozambique and Ethiopia.

Also in this issue we have an excerpt from a new book by psychologist Nathaniel Branden, due in the book stores within a few weeks of the release of this issue of REASON. Dr. Branden is the author of the well-regarded book The Psychology of Self-Esteem. We suspect that many people who agree with his thesis that it is important and right for individuals to develop their own potential will be at least initially taken aback by the political implications Branden finds in this thesis; we excerpt here (see page 41) the chapter in his latest book that lays out these implications.

—M.Z.