Luther Gulick was not only a  peerless organizer, adviser to Presidents, war and peace strategist, champion of a new science of government administration – and inveterate doodler.  He was also an aspiring poet. In 1953, drawing on a visit to Cartagena, Colombia, he penned some verses and sent them off to the Atlantic Monthly.

Alas, his prominence did him little service.  The mails brought a rebuff familiar to writers through the ages.