The article title "I Road Uncle Sam's Gravy Train" appeared in the 9 January 1954 issue of the Saturday Evening Post and shocked many average Americans: Thomas Drake Durrance confessed that as a government worker he lived the high life off the taxpayer's dollar. Prior to-taking a govern-- ment job, Durrance worked as an editor in Washington, D.C.; but, typical of young American urban couples of the 1950s, he could not afford a family car or a full-time maid. After he took a job with the U.S. Economic Co-operation Administrationas a class-three foreign-service staff officer (an FSS-3) with the title of assistant economic commissioner, "luxury followed luxury in . . . dizzy succession." Foreign-service officers, Durrance discovered, "were participants in an unconscionable exploitation of the fellow taxpayers we left behind." His position paid $7,380 a year, plus extra tax-free allowances of $3,370, for a total income...