Discussion: Former Robert Kennedy Aide Frank Mankiewicz Dies

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Discussion for article #229271

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Frank Mankiewicz famously displayed a sign on his desk while working for RFK in the Senate. Translated from Spanish, it read:

When shit is gold, the poor will have no assholes.

Beautifully communicated, that.

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Great guy overall, though his opposition to converting us to the metric system in the 80’s always puzzled me. We are now the only country in the world not using the metric system. Had we converted back then life would be a lot easier now for US people who deal with other countries.

But on policy, he was excellent, and he worked for arguably the most honest politician ever, George McGovern.

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Not just other countries, but ourselves. I recently had to take a pesticide applicator certification exam, and it’s like a demonstration piece on why we should be using the metric system. Making dilutions by dry ounces per gallon, dispensed per acre, is a complete nightmare. It’s easier to convert everything to metric and then back again. But then, because it’s how I grew up, intuitively I still think in English measurements.

That said, Mankiewicz was a great person.

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Excellent point about this country too. I am a structural engineer and I run a construction company here in NYC. Dealing with fractions is real dumb when it comes to lengths, etc. Yeah, cutting a pie into 1/8ths is fine. But adding 4’ 5 3/16" + 6’ 4 7/8" + 12’ 9 1/4" just takes too long, and it leaves a lot of room for mistakes.

Yes, otherwise an outstanding human. And only a few comments on here. Wow.

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Frank Mankiewicz is immortalised in Hunter S. Thompson’s writing, e.g. the highly recommendable “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, 1972” ( I re-read that book yearly just to enjoy HSTs writing, bringing one back to the early seventies).

I recall HST took some flak from descibing Mankiewitz as a ‘rumpled litte man’ (later compensating by calling him “Tall and natty”), but that does not diminish the positive impression of Mankiewics rendered.

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It has become annoying to follow every mention of a measurement in metrics (with the imperial measures in parentheses.) I can picture the height of a building better in meters when I am not distracted by the nonsense of the parenthetical equivalent, which is usually ridiculously overspecified in journalism.

If publishers would stop that unnecessary handholding, eventually there wouldn’t be any more anxiety about converting, because metrics would belong in everyday parlance.

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It’s purely a guess, but probably Mankiewitz heard protests from manufacturers about how the conversion costs would ruin them and from trade-union leaders fearing U.S. machinists’ skills becoming obsolete. Thank goodness he listened, right?

I am absolutely positively and inarguably certain that no subterfuge from foreign governments was involved, even though failure to convert put another ocean between United States producers and the rest of the world economy. That kind of subterfuge is something only the United States knows how to do. Imagine the British trying such a thing.

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I suspect it’s because most of his work was behind the scenes. If I hadn’t read Fear & Loathing I wouldn’t really have known who he was either.

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Exactly, his decision was based on politics and campaign money, not on common sense and what was right.

I’ve heard for 40 years how all the EPA rules would kill business, yet that has not happend yet, nor will it.