If the business community could be convinced, moreover, it would be disproportionately influential. When he was speaking out on Vietnam, Willens often found that he got more attention from the press than he did from his own constituency. "I learned quickly that to be a business executive and to oppose military spending and military involvement was like being a two-headed calf," he says. That, in turn, led Willens to a new view of the importance of business. "It became clear to me that businesspeople acting as citizens could get tremendous attention on a controversial issue -- and could become a 'trimtab."
Willens borrowed the trimtab concept from R. Buckminster Fuller; it refers to a small amount of leverage, precisely placed, that ultimately produces enormous effect. On ocean liners, for example, the trimtab is a small rudder attached to the huge main rudder which, because of the mass and momentum of the ship, is difficult to turn. The trimtab, however, responds quickly to even a small influence and then turns the main rudder, which in turn alters the course of the entire ship. Willens set out to write a book, which he called The Trimtab Factor. The cover blurb reads: "Our ship of state is taking us into very dangerous waters. Business leadership can be the trimtab that will change our direction before it is too late."
The most challenging part of Willens's book is his presentation of what he calls an "incremental nuclear weapons freeze." He outlines a series of steps by which the United States can take the initiative in proposing moratoria -- first on the testing of nuclear weapons, then on the flight-testing of nuclear-weapons delivery systems, then on the deployment of any new nuclear weapons systems. And he concludes with a proposal to reduce existing nuclear arsenals drastically. If the Soviet Union doesn't respond to the U.S. initiative within a reasonable period of time, in Willens's plan, the United States would no longer be bound by its proposal. Willens believes this program is particularly well-suited to the inherently conservative disposition of business: It represents a more moderate adaptation of the 1982 Bilateral Nuclear Freeze Initiative, which has been endorsed by more than 12 million voters in nine states. It is also, he says, politically achievable. Moreover, it "represents a methodical process for breaking the momentum of the arms race with no real risk to our national security."
Since February, Willens has turned into a sort of one-man movement, promoting his "primer" with a double-barreled marketing strategy that relies partly on the efforts of William Morrow & Co., his publisher, and partly on the "financial participation of friends who believe in what I'm doing." Immediately after publication of the book, he galloped through the usual promotional tour, overlaying it with additional visits, which he engineered personally, to newspapers, magazines, and business groups. He also put $60,000 of his own money into the marketing effort, and took personal responsibility for distributing 22,000 copies of the book. He had copies hand-delivered to every member of Congress, accompanied by a flattering letter of introduction signed by Senators Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). He has since sent copies to most college and university presidents, to religious leaders, to presidents of Chambers of Commerce, and to various media executives, editors, and journalists. Some executives have been so impressed by Willens's book that they have also taken to distributing books at their own expense. James Jensen, president of Seattle-based Thousand Trails Inc., bought 1,000 copies. And Lawrence Phillips, president of Phillips-Van Heusen Corp., is, according to Willens, sending books to the chief executive officers of the Fortune 1,000 companies. Phillips was among a list of 25 executives who, along with Willens, recently advertised the book in a two-page spread in The New York Times at a cost of $60,000.
Willens says he will feel fulfilled if, within the next 12 months, his initiative inspires the formation of 25 regional groups such as Allan Brown's New Forum, which he considers a fine example of an influential grass-roots movement. Brown, a soft-spoken, self-effacing man, was flattered when he learned of Willens's opinion, but disclaims any such cosmic ambitions. He agrees, however, that being able to sign letters as the president of a 57-year-old general contracting company with revenues of $25 million to $35 million a year, does give him a little extra clout.
"People are admired because they have climbed to the heads of corporations," he says. "They are believable because they have obviously been successful in making decisions -- and military matters are also practical decisions.
The New Forum, which began as no more than a vague impulse "to do something tangible," does exemplify business involvement in its most unpretentious and elemental form. In the fall of 1983, Brown and several friends invited four like-minded people to a breakfast to explore how they could educate people about the danger of nuclear war. Friends invited more friends from business and other professions to more breakfast meetings, and, after several pounds of coffee and rolls, the New Forum emerged, replete with a newsletter, study groups, and a schedule of monthly meetings. Brown says the group, which now has more than 200 members, is currently considering various ways of amplifying its concern with direct political action.
BENS, meanwhile, has emerged as a dependably generic representation of the business movement at the national level. Its membership list reflects support from a broad cross-section of American business: Sidney Harman, chairman of Harman International Industries Inc. and former Undersecretary of Commerce; J. Richard Munro, president and chief executive officer of Time Inc.; real estate developer James W. Rouse, chairman of The Rouse Co.; John C. Haas, vice-chairman of Rohm & Haas Co.; Mortimer B. Zuckerman, Boston real estate developer and owner of The Atlantic magazine; Robert Stuart, chairman of National Can Corp.; and, since late 1983 when Business Alert merged into BENS, Douglas Marshall, president of H. Newton Marshall. "We've been very careful to reflect American business thinking in all that we do," claims Stanley Weiss, "particularly the entrepreneurial part of it. It's part of the entrepreneur's very nature to take a new idea and make it succeed."
