The Martian's Daughter: A Memoir by Marina von Neumann Whitman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Searcher for levers. Newspapers devourer. Economic Portia. Full employment of mind."
(a characterization of Ms. von Neumann Whitman by C. Jackson Grayson, the U.S. Chairman of the Price Commission in the early 1970s.)

The main reason I reached for Marina von Neumann Whitman's memoir The Martian's Daughter (2012) was that - being sort of a mathematician - I wanted to learn more about her father, John von Neumann, one of the most important mathematicians of the 20th century, often called the "smartest man alive." He was a key player both in the Manhattan Project and in the development of the hydrogen bomb. He was the one who chose the targets of the American A-bomb in the war against Japan. He was the father of game theory and one of the pioneers of digital computers. His development of the "von Neumann architecture" was one of the pivotal developments in the history of computing. I wanted to know more about him from his daughter.

I have not learned much about John von Neumann that I had not known before. Yes, Ms. Whitman's memories of the family life in Princeton are charming. For instance, she writes about Albert Einstein:

"He was visible mainly at a distance during the afternoon teas that took place daily in the institute's Fuld Hall, and his fame rested not only on his brilliance but also on his eccentricity, symbolized by his wild hair and the fact that he didn't wear socks. He had one close friend among his colleagues, Kurt Gödel, with whom he walked daily to and from the institute, deep in conversation as they went."

We learn a lot about the troubled marriage of Ms. Whitman's parents and about an unusual child custody arrangement they had after the divorce. The reader also gets a fascinating portrayal of life in the U.S. during 1939 - 1940, the first two years of World War II. While the U.S. was not yet at war the entire Europe was and since von Neumanns were immigrants from Hungary their observations are particularly sharp. They describe the situation through European eyes.

I find the memoir much more interesting when Ms. Whitman writes about her own career and spectacular achievements. She became one of the foremost economists in the U.S., advised president Nixon on economic issues, served on the boards of directors of corporations like Proctor & Gamble, Unocal, Manufacturers Hanover Bank, and several others, served as vice president and chief economist of the General Motors corporation. She also served as a director of leading multinational corporations and research and policy institutions.

So while I do not recommend the book as a source of information about John von Neumann, I certainly recommend it for the extremely critical picture of major U.S. corporations in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Particularly critical is Ms. Whitman's assessment of the top executives, including CEOs of some of the biggest corporations in the world, like General Motors or similar business giants. The stories of gross incompetence of the top management in many famous companies made me really angry. Hard-working, competent people, like, for instance nurses, earn less than $100,000 while the utterly incompetent top executives earn hundreds or thousands times more. If nurses were as inept as the CEOs, they would be fired after a few days, without "golden parachutes."

To me, Ms. Whitman's book provides strong evidence for the celebrated Peter's Principle. The principle states that in every organization employees rise through promotion until they reach their level of incompetence. In other words, incompetence at the top levels in any organization is not coincidental but virtually mandatory.

There is yet another layer of the memoir, perhaps one that the author emphasizes the most. Gender discrimination that existed in business and academic world in the times that Ms. Whitman developed her academic, government, and business career was staggering. Through her talent, intense focus, and dedication she became the trailblazer for all women after her.

Finally: why "Martian's daughter"? "Martians" was a humorous term for five Hungarian Jewish physicists, Szilard, Wigner, von Neumann, Teller, and von Karman, who spent most of their scientific lives in the United States and made fundamental contributions to the Allied victory in World War II.

"[...] some other participants in the Manhattan Project, speculating on how there came to be so many brilliant Hungarians in their midst, concluded that these colleagues were really creatures from Mars who disguised their nonhuman origins by speaking Hungarian."

Three-and-a-half stars.


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