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The Luncheon Society
Michael Dukakis, 1988 Democratic nominee for the Presidency and a 3 term governor of Massachusetts, joined us to discuss the importance of mass transit, especially found within intracity passenger rail in San Francisco. Dukakis says his top priorities for America's infrastructure would include a "first-class, national, high-speed rail system and excellent public transportation - mostly rail-based - in the major cities in this country." Yet, the recent Trump budget zeroes out funding for Amtrak, which, he says, makes absolutely no sense." Amtrak requires less subsidy than any other national rail system," Dukakis says. "Amtrak makes more of its money from the fare box than any other national rail passenger system in the world. ... About 85 percent of its expenses are paid for by passengers and system revenue. That's pretty remarkable, and I don't think most people understand this." Amtrak's current subsidies pale in comparison to the nation's highway system, Dukakis points out. Highways in America get over $40 billion dollars in federal funding every year; air transportation gets about $16 billion. Amtrak's funding is down to a few hundred million dollars. Dukakis estimates it would take about $100 to $200 billion to begin rebuilding America's antiquated transportation systems. States are actively involved in developing projects.
 Jim Sano is World Wildlife Fund's Vice President for Travel, Tourism and Conservation. He serves as the senior advisor on sustainable tourism programs and develops new initiatives to engage our most committed supporters. Jim was formerly President of Geographic Expeditions, a San Francisco-based adventure travel company that offers educational travel, location management, and sustainable travel consulting services. During his tenure the company received multiple awards and distinctions, including being named best adventure travel company in the world and one of the 50 best places to work in America. Prior to joining Geographic Expeditions, Jim served as a ranger and special assistant to the Superintendent at Yosemite National Park in California. His responsibilities included overseeing park naturalist/interpretive programs; coordinating several key elements of the park's General Management Plan; and serving as a member of its search and rescue team. Jim was on WWF's National Council for 10 years and is an Emeritus Board Member of the Trust for Public Land. Additionally, he was the founding president of the Mono Lake Foundation; and a founding director of the Natural Step and the Yosemite Restoration Trust. Jim is the recipient of five National Park Service Special Achievement awards. He also led the first American men and women's expedition to Mt. Everest, the first guided crossing of South Georgia Island, and other ground-breaking expeditions in Asia and Latin America.
 Then it was down to Monterrey for a conversation with Leon Panetta, the former Congressman, Director of the OMB, and Chief of Staff of the Clinton Administration between 1994 and 1997. He discussed the arc of his career, from a Senate aide, to the Nixon White House, to the halls of Congress and then to the Clinton Administration. In January 2009, newly elected President Barack Obama nominated Panetta for the post of CIA Director. Panetta was confirmed by the full Senate in February 2009. As director of the CIA, Panetta oversaw the operation that brought down international terrorist Osama bin Laden. On April 28, 2011, Obama announced the nomination of Panetta as Defense Secretary, to replace the retiring Robert Gates. In June the Senate confirmed Panetta unanimously and he assumed the office on July 1, 2011. David Petraeus took over as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency on September 6, 2011. Since retiring as Secretary of Defense in 2013, Panetta has served as Chairman of The Panetta Institute for Public Policy, located at California State University, Monterey Bay, a campus of the California State University that he helped establish during his tenure as congressman. The Institute is dedicated to motivating and preparing people for lives of public service and helping them to become more knowledgeably engaged in the democratic process. He also serves on a number of boards and commissions and frequently writes and lectures on public policy issues.
 George McGovern, 1972 Democratic Presidential nominee, former 3-term US Senator, talked about the challenges of fighting terrorism while maintaining the importance to individual freedoms. McGovern grew up in Mitchell, South Dakota, where he was a renowned debater. He volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Forces upon the country's entry into World War II and as a B-24 Liberator pilot flew 35 missions over German-occupied Europe from a base in Italy. Among the medals bestowed upon him was a Distinguished Flying Cross for making a hazardous emergency landing of his badly damaged plane and saving his crew. After the war he earned degrees from Dakota Wesleyan University and Northwestern University, culminating in a PhD, and was a history professor. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1956 and re-elected in 1958. After a failed bid for the U.S. Senate in 1960, he was a successful candidate in 1962. As a senator, McGovern was an example of modern American liberalism. He became most known for his outspoken opposition to the growing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He staged a brief nomination run in the 1968 presidential election as a stand-in for the assassinated Robert F. Kennedy. The subsequent McGovern-Fraser Commission fundamentally altered the presidential nominating process, by greatly increasing the number of caucuses and primaries and reducing the influence of party insiders. The McGovern-Hatfield Amendment sought to end the Vietnam War by legislative means but was defeated in 1970 and 1971. McGovern's long-shot, grassroots-based 1972 presidential campaign found triumph in gaining the Democratic nomination but left the party badly split ideologically, and the failed vice-presidential pick of Thomas Eagleton undermined McGovern's credibility. In the general election McGovern lost to incumbent Richard Nixon in one of the biggest landslides in U.S. electoral history. Though re-elected to the Senate in 1968 and 1974, McGovern was defeated in his bid for a fourth term in 1980.
 Coming off their World Series loss, Peter McGowan, The Managing General Partner of the San Francisco Giants, discussed the challenges of running a major league franchise in these modern times. Magowan, along with a group of investors (including Charles B. Johnson, Scott Seligman, Philip Halperin, Allan Byer, and David S. Wolff) purchased the franchise on January 12, 1993, from the previous owner, Bob Lurie. Before Magowan's consortium stepped in with its offer to buy the team, Lurie had planned to sell the team to a group from St. Petersburg, Florida, now home to the Tampa Bay Rays. Magowan made his mark on the team immediately, signing free agent superstar Barry Bonds, a San Francisco Bay Area-native whose father, Bobby Bonds, began his career as a Giant. Magowan was also noted for spearheading the construction of the Giants' current home, Oracle Park (previously AT&T Park, SBC Park and Pacific Bell Park). Previously, several initiatives to build tax-supported stadiums had been rejected by San Francisco voters. In December 1995, Magowan unveiled his plan for a 42,000 seat ballpark in China Basin, which would be privately funded - the first ballpark built without public funds in over 30 years. The plan was passed easily by San Francisco voters, by a two-to-one margin.
 Gary Hart, retired two term US Senator from Colorado and Presidential candidate joined The Luncheon Society for his first of many conversations on the domestic implications of foreign policy. Hart had made a name for himself as a military reformer -- an advocate of low technology and maneuver. In this book he attempts to recover that reputation, despite the triumph of high technology and firepower in the Persian Gulf War. In so doing, he resurrects a fascinating but virtually unknown American military thinker, John McAuley Palmer, a confidant of General George C. Marshall and a passionate advocate of a militia system of military service. Hart proposes slashing the active force by 50 to 65 percent, to be replaced with an overhauled National Guard and Reserve. The proposal is thin on the details, and thinner yet on the geopolitics -- how is the United States to maintain its global commitments with weekend warriors?
 In San Francisco for an ABA Convention, Warren Christopher, former Secretary of State under Bill Clinton, joined us and accurately predicted back in 2003 that no weapons of mass destruction would be found within Iraq. During Bill Clinton's first term as President, he served as the 63rd United States Secretary of State. Born in Scranton, North Dakota, Christopher clerked for Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas after graduating from Stanford Law School. He became a partner in the firm of O'Melveny & Myers and served as Deputy Attorney General from 1967 to 1969 under President Lyndon B. Johnson. He served as Deputy Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter, holding that position from 1977 to 1981. In 1991, he chaired the Christopher Commission, which investigated the Los Angeles Police Department in the wake of the Rodney King incident. During the 1992 presidential election, Christopher headed Bill Clinton's search for a running mate, and Clinton chose Senator Al Gore. After Clinton won the 1992 election, Christopher led the Clinton administration's transition process, and he took office as Secretary of State in 1993. As Secretary of State, Christopher sought to expand NATO, broker peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and pressure China regarding its human rights practices. He also helped negotiate the Dayton Agreement, which ended the Bosnian War. He left office in 1997, and was succeeded by Madeleine Albright. Christopher oversaw the Gore campaign's Florida recount effort in the aftermath of the disputed 2000 presidential election. At the time of his death in 2011, he was a Senior Partner at O'Melveny & Myers in the firm's Century City, California, office. He also served as a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles.
 Lowell Bergman, who was portrayed by Al Pacino in the movie The Insider, talked about the sequence of events between Jeffrey Weigand, 60 Minutes and Brown and Williamson Tobacco, where tobacco was manipulated to increase the levels of nicotine. Lowell Bergman is the Emeritus Reva and David Logan Distinguished Chair in Investigative Journalism at the Graduate School of Journalism where he taught its first class in investigative reporting in 1991. That evolved into a seminar and then the school's Investigative Reporting Program (IRP) which he founded in 2006. Retiring from the chair in 2019, he continues as President of the board of Investigative Studios. Founded in 2017 this unique nonprofit production company formally affiliated with UC Berkeley is dedicated to supporting the IRP, and continuing the tradition of wedding creating original public interest journalism. Bergman spent three decades working in national television news with ABC, then CBS' "60 Minutes," and PBS' documentary series "Frontline." His work has been honored with multiple Emmys, duPonts and Peabody's. His "60 Minutes" investigation of the tobacco industry was dramatized in 1999 in the Academy Award-nominated feature film "The Insider." In 2004, The New York Times received journalism's highest honor, the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, for his work with David Barstow and two Berkeley graduate students on "A Dangerous Business," which detailed thousands of egregious worker safety and environmental violations in the iron pipe and other industries. The documentary also received every major award in broadcasting. Bergman was a New York Times correspondent until 2008 and a senior producer and consultant to Frontline until 2015.
 Rusty Schweickart, Lunar Module pilot of Apollo 9; discussed the inevitability of a collision with a Near Earth Objects, along their terrible dangers. It is hard to believe that we have had 5 ELEs (Extinction Level Events) in the history of earth. A sixth calamity is inevitable. Pack carefully. Schweickart is a retired business and government executive. He co-founded the B612 Foundation, a non-profit private foundation that champions the development of spaceflight capability to protect Earth from future asteroid impacts. Schweickart is founder and past president of the Association of Space Explorers (ASE), the international professional society of astronauts and cosmonauts. The Association's first book, The Home Planet, with a preface by Schweickart, was published simultaneously in 10 nations in 1988 and was an immediate international best seller. Schweickart also founded the Association of Space Explorers Committee on Near-Earth Objects from 2005 through 2011. The ASE's NEO committee works with the UN on resolving the international geopolitical issues inherent in the NEO impact threat. The ASE NEO Committee and its international Panel on Asteroid Threat Mitigation completed its report Asteroid Threats: A Call for Global Response in September 2008. In February 2009 this report was formally introduced in the United Nations and is today the basis for ongoing deliberations, leading to a General Assembly approved decision-making system to address the challenge of impact threatening NEOs.
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The Luncheon Society™
 is a series of private luncheons and dinners that take place in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Manhattan, and Boston. During the Pandemic, we are on Zoom. Discussions center on politics, art, science, film, culture, and whatever else is on our mind. Think of us as "Adult Drop in Daycare." We've been around since 1996 and we're purposely understated; 2021 will be our 26th season. In these gatherings, you interact with the main guest and conversation becomes the end result. There are no rules, very little structure, and the gatherings happen when they happen. Join us when you can.
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We then had a robust conversation about the geopolitical nature of global terrorism with George Shultz, who served as Secretary of State under Reagan as well as Secretary of Labor and Treasury under Nixon at Kokkari in San Francisco. 