Joining nations 1947-1990

A FIRST CRISIS AND ITS AFTERMATH, I 96 I - I 964 35

Less than a month after the 1962 Assembly Walter Edstrom died while sailing his yacht in the Baltic, his death following three months after that of the Founder Vice-President, Professor Albert Portevin. Thus vanished two of the five men who formed the initial Executive Council, one of them leaving a vacancy for which there was no precedent and which was not foreseen in the Constitution. The solution adopted by the Executive Council was to invite the senior Vice-President, Mr F L Plummer, to take over the presidential responsibilities until the President-Elect started his term of office at the 1963 Assembly in Helsinki. It was also decided to recommend the amendment of the Constitution to make formal provision for the appointment of a President-Elect and to increase the number of Vice-Presidents from four to six as proposed by President Edstrom's Consultative Committee. These amendments were duly approved by the Governing Council in 1 963 when Professor Ruhl took office as President. He was a leading member of the German delegation and had already served for four years in the exacting role of Chairman of Commission IX, a position maintained throughout his Presidency, which was marked by his tact, courtesy and deference to the opinions of his colleagues. Fortunately for him, by the time he assumed office the financial position had improved, the new system for fixing national contri– butions had been introduced, revenue from publications was rising and Welding in the World had been launched (see Chapter 9). However, one problem which he had to face concerned the future of Presi– dent Edstrom's Consultative Committee whose work had been left unfinished. Professor Ruhl immediately called a meeting of this committee, the result of which was a recommendation for the estab– lishment of a Technical Committee of the Executive Council to co-ordinate the work of the Commissions, establish priorities and select new subjects for study; the Executive Council agreed that this Committee should be composed of five of its own members (of which four ex officio) and four other members - an arrangement which has continued largely unchanged ever since. The attention of the Governing Council at the following Assembly in Prague in 1964 .was mainly occupied by a prolonged debate con– cerning the terms of reference of Commission IX, the upshot of which was no great change. On less contentious matters, it was decided to commemorate Mr Edstrom by the Edstrom Medal, to be awarded to those who had rendered exceptional services to the IIW such as Professors Houdremont and Portevin who were both now to