Every year the few hundred members of the Committees, Task Forces, and Councils of the American Psychiatric Association meet in Washington, D.C. to conduct their business. They deliberate on a wide variety of issues encompassed in the activities of each group. The psychiatrists constituting this mixed and somewhat elite group include some of the better-known and promising people in the profession, which makes the plenary session and cocktail party good occasions to meet old friends and to make new ones. Several years ago one of us (N.B.L.) attended this gathering as a member of a soon-to-be...