Oscar Kempthorne: From Observation to Inference, 1991 part 2

well how did the war affect your your there any fear that you would lose the war that invade England well oh I guess there was fear did you have that fear not really I had sort of you had faith in England all come through the the Germans would be beaten I see leave it have they had to be beaten they would be beaten there's no question about it it might be tough it wasn't so tough on me you know because I was reserved to do technical work I don't know how then somebody had to wish them to do that so well I understand that one of your duties at rothamsted came in the form of this secondment by the British Foreign Office oh yes that was a curious thing and that was to help monitor the freeness and fairness of post-war Greek elections yes can you tell us a little about your work there and how that led to a drastic korea-china are you well you know this at the end of the war or during the war and at the end the world was polarized between left and right and Greece was certainly Paul right polarized I forget the names of the groups but there was a strong left-wing group and a strong centrist right-wing group and these two groups started fighting you know maybe you recall some of the novels of this time there's one Paul the frat resides and but so the Allies which really consisted of Britain and the United States decided to put an army in between these opposing forces then they decided that there would be an election then the election should be monitored so what group should monitor the election sort of all this that the real monitoring would be by statisticians but is how many dead people voted how many people were from voting and all of that sort of thing so that was the story that was an interesting group because there were you know real statisticians there the thing that operation was headed by Raymond Jason who was a professor here in statistics and on in a group were Jerzy Neyman mm-hm and Joe Daly and Ed Deming mm-hmm so and Oscar Kim oh I was I was really just a boy then so anyhow it was very pleasant and so I go back to the election was distressing personally to me because I was that the right wing centrist right-wing one ricin you know and so I you know I was this usual young man if you aren't left wing there's something wrong with John okay so although you were there to monitor freeness and fairness you had a private concern that you'd hope that the left would win I'd hoped but there it is but of course you know it had to well the idea was to find out in what in fact happened when we found out yes I couldn't get out of Greece fast enough you know I was sick well you know the the center right wing one yes and in a fair way I understood well in a fair way yes was the you see the the left wing or claiming that there were hundreds of thousands of people hiding in basements and whatever who didn't come out for the election I think but in fact it you know there they weren't there and then of course when you get down to the end of it if if these people did not have some confidence in the monitoring then that's too bad you know the Allies were doing best and it would have been they were called it they would have called it fairly if there had been you know dead people voting that would have been noted uh-huh that's all so that's grease right so you say you got out of Greece and back to rothamsted about them tell us what happened then I got back to rothamsted the the leader of the sister group said was Ray jessen here and I was 30 iowa state and there was another one from iowa state and they needed staff here so they particularly Justin I guess offered me a position here and I was slow in the up cake and the uptake and then they put up some travel money so eventually I came I came for two years and two years has extended to moderately but moderately extended mod early to 45 right so so let's move on to those early years in Iowa State the early users you started work at iowa state college now iowa state university in january nineteen forty-seven i believe can you tell us a little about your early days in the department up until say your book on experimental design was published in nineteen fifty two well it was natural i guess that i would teach design of experiments so I that is what i started doing but then the department lost staff and really staff went down precipitously we had two very good people mood and brown george brown but they left and so I suppose essentially I had to pick up the pieces so I was teaching linear models and probability out of crime air right and then sort of inference of Neyman Pearson sort of thing so you were teaching all the core courses for the graduate program therefore for a year and a half maybe so anyhow I had the you know the the main interest was design of experiments here and that fitted in very naturally to this school of agriculture yes because this discipline design of experiments was appreciated by agricultural research workers yes I'd like to follow up on that if I might I used your design book in a course that I was teaching in Australia and I don't think I appreciated the corn and hogs examples until I moved to Iowa myself doesn't it strike you as rather ironic that your dislike of cleaning our farm sheds led you to Cambridge and then full circle back into the middle of it although no longer actually cleaning our sheds well you see I wasn't very involved at what other people were doing that let me ask the question more seriously do you think your boyhood farming experienced helped you in your work at Iowa State oh there's no question about that because I having lived on the farm for you know nearly 20 for 20 years I knew what was going on in farming so I didn't really have to didn't really have to learn anything you know the farming here was very much the same as in England and I was very handy yes that experience so you know that was that came in very to be extremely useful I'd like to bring in a little personal side now if I might you married valdir in june nineteen forty nine i think yes that's right one can't help but notice how informed an interested values in your career and in your work can you tell us more about bowels influence on your own well see there's a bit of a hiatus in this that I was married before but that went kaput whatever it is so you know so i met val and we see a graduate student she was a graduate student in agricultural economics from Australia promised Rose right so here is she of course agricultural economics was very strong some years before but its strength had gone somewhat by the time she came here is so but then she wasn't all that serious a student I think I think she needed some help in statistics are you thinking huh well I we kept away from statistics I see but you know she has she knows all of my career and she knows a lot about statistics you know and I think it's been a great help to you both professionally and in the personal life oh yes but as a member of the department it's always struck me how generous bail has been towards the department and what a great interest she takes in it so I yes well you know the whole idea is to make the thing go yes make look and you know we were here this we wanted this we both wanted this to be a first-class shop and I think you know this was achieved so well I actually would like to ask you a little about the shop because I noticed that you often refer to our statistics operation here as the shop shot having now been here eight years I think the description is very act but I admit to having been baffled by it at first can you explain what you mean by at the shop well was a full statistical enterprise of teaching consulting and research and these constituent parts respected each other you know and sort of made it a shop yes there was a sort of community of spirit yes and I think I felt that but originally when I visited here in 1980 I kept looking for a shop counter I couldn't find one well I don't know why how they came to be I stumbled into that usage but anyhow I think it Larry yeah it was a good shop yes well what influence do you think the shop has had on the subject of statistics at both a campus well at a campus level a national level and an international level well at the campus level of course it it managed to keep the teaching of statistics almost all all of it in the department so statistics had a big stature in the University evaluation then well as regards the national status you know I think it's fair to say it still has that states tel in this day but perhaps you and it had a bigger statue well it I guess you know that is sort of an interesting question because undoubtedly the shop yes kion status got stature from the existence of Snedeker who had written this book on statistical methods which was known all over the world and of course I knew about it and that was a reason for coming here Nazihah you know I was I was going to a place that knew something about statistics yes so undoubtedly Snedeker hi tremendous influence in developing this national international status is on the