Middle atmosphere research before alan plumb

Alan Plumb has been one of the principal contributors to research into middle atmosphere dynamics and transport for over 3 decades now, so it is difficult to imagine the field without his great contributions, but it is good to remember the famous quote from Isaac Newton's 1676 letter to Robert Hooke, "If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." Alan's work similarly built on the work of those that came before him, just as many younger atmospheric scientists make their contributions standing on Alan's shoulders. Alan has made significant contributions in many areas, but i will concentrate on those aspects of his work that are in the broad areas of wave-mean flow interactions and middle atmosphere transport. The following then is my version of the status of our understanding of these fields in the "before Alan Plumb" years.