For those who do not know Don and Peg Wilber, some background might be helpful. In 1988 the Wilbers moved from an attractive house in Princeton with a screen porch overlooking a blooming garden to a retirement community in nearby Hightstown, New Jersey. To those who do not know them well, it might have appeared that the Wilbers were retiring from over a half century of active involvement in the artistic, social, economic, and political life of the Middle East to enjoy a less stressful existence and the activities of their children, grandchildren, and friends. Such a notion is far from the truth. In a recent conversation, Don lnformed us that their book on Oriental carpets was entering the design stage and he needed some new projects. These years have also seen the publication of the massive two- volume The Timurid Architecture of Iran and Turan with Lisa Golombeck, his memoirs of living and working in the Middle East from 1930 to 1970 entitled Adventures in the Middle East, Excursions and Incursions, and lis research monograph, A Descriptive Catalogue of Dated Rugs md of Inscribed Rugs.

Don Wilber, in the parlance of the U.S. State Department, has been called an "Old Middle East Hand." Old Middle East hands don't just fade away; they are intransigent, intractable, indestructible, and intellectual. By American norms they became too involved in the area, they went native, they lost their perspective. They had a penchant for wearing those funny Middle Eastern robes, like Lawrence of Arabia. As the picture of Don on the cover of Adventures in the Middle East shows, Don Wilber is all this and more - but he insists he has never been on a camel.

Born in 1907 in Madison, Wisconsin, he did not set out to be a Middle Eastern scholar or diplomat. At Princeton University he majored in art and archaeology, graduating in 1929, and continued graduate studies in architecture. After one year he was hired by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago as an artist to work in Egypt recording the inscriptions on monuments there. However, he reports that he "took to the region at once." In 1932 he returned to Princeton where he completed his master's degree in architecture. This was followed by a year of work in Syria and then to Iran in 1935 when he began a long association with Arthur Upham Pope and the American Institute of Persian Art. During this period he gathered data on many Iranian architectural monuments which provided the material for volumes on Il Khanid and Timurid architecture and numerous other publications on Iranian architecture and archaeology. In 1939 he married another young architect, Margaret Surre, a Wellesley and MIT graduate whom he met in Syria.

Recruited to work for American intelligence during World War II, he also found time to complete his Ph.D. in architecture at Princeton in 1949. He became a major political strategist in the post-war maneuvers to return the Shah to power after his overthrow by Mohammed Mossadeq in 1953. This plan was called Operation Ajax, and Don Wilber was its principal creator. He continued as an intelligence analyst until his retirement in 1969.

We first met Don and Peg in the mid '60s when we worked for a Middle East-organization. But it was in the 1970s, after they formed the Princeton Rug Society, that we got to know them best. As are most things with which Don and Princeton are associated, the Princeton Rug Society is idiosyncratic. For example at that time membership in the Pittsburgh Rug Society was $10; in Princeton it was $2. Pittsburgh admitted anyone who paid dues; to be a member of the Princeton group you had to live within a 30 mile radius, unless - and this was Don Wilber's rule - you were invited and gave an illustrated talk to the Princeton Rug Society, after which you could become a member.

Don is a latecomer to Oriental rugs. It is a field of interest that he took up in his "retirement." But as with most things he turns his attention to, it has been with intelligence, diligence, and humor. His humor is perhaps the one thing which escapes most people for it is low key, wry, and it is often perceived as contemptuous, though such is not the case. He is first and foremost a scholar and secondly a teacher. Although we know him to be untutored in Oriental rugs in the broadest sense, his pronouncements or writings on those aspects of rugs on which he has chosen to express himself are earnestly and respectfully considered by those in rug studies because of his thoughtful and scholarly approach to a topic.

This is the reason for this special section of Oriental Rug Review as a tribute to Don Wilber. His work serves as a model which should guide people in this field. His writings on Oriental rugs have been offered as goads to others to look more critically at what is presented and suggest ways in which better and more valid research could be conducted. In the absence of scholars who fully devote their time and careers to the furthering of Oriental rugs studies, we look to Don Wilber for guidance as to what constitutes good scholarship. Donald N. Wilber's experience and contributions to our knowledge of the art, architecture, and archaeology of the Middle East are critical to our understanding of Oriental rugs. We hope the essays presented in this issue are as instructive as his contributions. Don responded to our request for a contribution to this issue with two articles, one serious and one light, as we might have expected. As he and other serious scholars have been distressed by some recent contributions to the study of Oriental rugs, his article on the Luristan bronzes is offered as a background to the how, when, where, and why the pieces came to be. Their relationship to theories of Oriental rug design origins should be considered against this background.

The second contribution, "Swat That Pest," is pure Don Wilber. This is a light review of his own articles on Oriental rugs and what their "meaning" was. We hope Don Wilber will remain engaged enough in this field to continue to enlighten and amuse us well into the next century. If he runs out of other projects, we hope to read more articles from one "who was there."