LOGISTICS OF THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, JULY 4, 1976


	It  having  been  to  decided to invite everyone to the 200th
birthday party of the United States of America,  this  memorandum  is
intended to explore the practical problems involved.  Our preliminary
conclusion is that the project is feasible if expensive.  However,  a
prompt start is necessary if everyone is to have an enjoyable time.

	Approximately  3,700,000,000  will be invited of whom perhaps
3,000,000,000 will be able to come using the transportation provided.
The  problems  to  be  solved  will  be discussed under the following
headings:  transportation,  housing,  food,  entertainment,  finance,
protocol, schedule of preparations, site.


1. TRANSPORTATION

	Suppose that we allow 30 days for incoming transportation
and the same for the outgoing.  Moving 3 billion people means 100 million
must be moved each day.  If we use stretched Boeing 747s, each can
move approximately 500 people per day considering that the round
trips are from varying distances.  This says we need 200,000 of
these airplanes.  The number that presently exist is about a thousand,
built over the last 16 years.  How long would it take to build the
airplanes?  They cost about $50 million apiece, but I will bet they
could be built for $10 million apiece if 200,000 were wanted.  That
makes it $2 trillion for the airplanes, which is 2/3 of one year's
GNP of the U.S.  I told you it would be an expensive party.