Episode 441 BOB DOLE The Life That Brought Him There (Part 22) The Senate (E) Stories from the Senate

Episode 441 — Bob Dole: The Life That Brought Him There (Part 22)

The Senate (E): Stories from the Senate

In Episode 441 of our continuing series on the life and career of Bob Dole, we step away from structure and strategy — and into the stories.

Featuring the same remarkable group of senators heard throughout this series — including Bob Packwood, Chuck Grassley, Thad Cochran, Trent Lott, Tom Daschle, Daniel Inouye, Alan Simpson, and Bob Dole himself — this episode offers a more personal and entertaining look at life inside the United States Senate.

These are the moments that don’t always make the history books.

The behind-the-scenes exchanges.
 The unexpected humor.
 The human side of an institution often seen only through formal debate and high-stakes decisions.

In this episode, the senators share stories from their time in office — anecdotes that reveal not just how the Senate worked, but what it felt like to be there. Through these recollections, we see a chamber shaped as much by personality and camaraderie as by rules and procedure.

It’s a reminder that even in one of the most powerful institutions in the world, relationships mattered — and sometimes, it was the lighter moments that built the trust needed to govern.

For listeners who want to go even deeper, a full transcript of this episode is available on the Buzzsprout page.

Part 22 brings the Senate to life in a different way —
 not through policy…
 but through story.

Questions or comments at  , Randalrgw1@aol.com ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
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Thanks for listening!!

Transcript

oral history of Senator Sam Nunn - Georgia

SPEAKER_07 0:00

Well one one other thing that's a little interesting tidbit in history, if uh if you want me to just talk about it. Um Bob probably would not uh know this or even um have uh have it ever have registered on his on his mind, but I would say that uh I had a a small role in him uh becoming a vice presidential candidate in 1976, and whatever uh flowed from that part of his uh career when he was running with Gerald Ford. Because my one of my mentors was Scoop Jackson, and Scoop was a Democrat from Washington State, very well respected in the Senate. And he uh and I together, I was young and he was already well established, but uh he persuaded me and I completely agreed that for anyone who was going to be head of the CIA uh to be viewed as a partisan, as someone lined up with the Democratic or Republican Party, or someone who was using that post to run for president, would be very injurious to the intelligence uh community. And Scoop was a big supporter of a strong American intelligence and feeling that biolosecurity, Soviet Union, China, all of that depended on it. So uh President Ford let it be known that he wanted to appoint George Herbert Walker Bush to be head of the CIA. Uh, he also uh inadvertently let it be known that uh uh George Herbert Walker Bush might be his choice for vice presidential candidate when he ran for election in 1976, because he'd been appointed, of course, after Nixon left office. Scoop and I uh uh insisted that uh that George Herbert Walker Bush, we liked him, we thought he was very well qualified, but we did not want him to be using the CIA as the preparation post for running for vice president. So we insisted that uh President Ford commit that that wouldn't happen if we were going to vote for his confirmation as head of CIA. Reluctantly, President Ford and uh then nominee, George Herbert Walker Bush, agreed that he would not be uh considered for the vice presidential candidate in uh 1976. Bob Dole ended up being that vice presidential candidate. So when you see Senator Dole tell him it if he thinks that was a great thing for him, that he should thank Scoop Jackson and me, but if he doesn't, then uh, you know, I can uh I can understand it. But I think it was a big change and had an effect on the country. And later, of course, George Herbert Walker Bush became vice presidential uh candidate under Reagan. So it was an a little interesting footnote to history. And I don't know where we s whether we could still find that Jerry Ford letter, but it would be a little historical footnote here that would be part of the Bob Dole career.

Host Randal Wallace introduces this episode

SPEAKER_00 3:20

And this is a little bit of some of the great stories that these senators tell about their time in the U.S. Senate and uh and dealing with Mondo and and all the rest. And I thought it would be just a great 45 minutes to an hour of just hearing the interactions and the stories that these guys tell that are historically important, but are also just damn well interesting. And uh some of them are uh funny, and then some of them are serious and I I got a lot out of them, and it will give you a feel for the United States Senate and for your government and how it works, how it really works. And uh and that's something we're we're trying to do with this series on Bob Dole. By the time it's over, we're not only gonna be looking at the final hero of this greatest generation who's still on the national stage, but I hope you'll have an education on how uh the legislative branch of the government works, because in a lot of ways, history tends to revolve around the presidency, and we don't really dive into how the Senate and the House works, how Congress works, and uh and I think that's something that if if you listen to the all three seasons we're gonna be doing on the you'll come away with a pretty deep knowledge of how the Senate operates and how it operated in his era. So we'll start with Senator Trent Lyon, he's gonna tell a story about um about uh them working out a deal when they were working on the balance budget amendment in which one senator who was it turned out to be a pivotal vote um and wouldn't support the Republican position uh offered to resign and how Bob Dole handled it. And uh it speaks volumes for just about how this the greatest generation operated in their time.

oral history of Senator Trent Lott R- Mississippi

SPEAKER_02 5:15

Remember the day the um Senator Hatfield apparently actually offered to resign. Yeah, oh yeah, I wasn't there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:24

I might have talked about that in my book too, Hurting Cats, which by the way, really something came from, I think I heard it the first time from Howard Baker, another majority leader, but I have made it my own. You know, that's one of the things we do in the Senate. We have uh uh here's something good, we take it as our own, we give no attribution. But uh I had done my whip work on this constitutional amendment for a balanced budget very carefully. And Bob was this is a case where he really was working with me, and we were talking about you know where the Republicans were, what Democrats might we get, and what Democrats had been with us but were f jumping ship on us this time. And finally it boiled down late one afternoon, maybe even the night. Uh I went to him and I said, Bob, I've worked this thing, worked this thing, worked this thing, and uh you have too. And I'm here to tell you that if we get Mark Hatville, it passes. If we don't, it won't. So, and I've done all I can. Uh it's up to you. So he asked Mark to come see him, and he went in the room there. I stayed in the out the anti-room. They went in there and stayed a good long while. Um, I don't, you know, I don't know exactly what was said, but uh basically Bob put it to him that uh it was all you know on his shoulders, and that we he really wanted his vote, and uh of course Mark Atfield said no. Uh his principles uh would not allow him to do that, and he he would vote no, but he would resign, and uh his resignation, vacating that seat would give us the win. And of course, Bob Dole turned it down. I think that once again uh reflected the men of that era. Bob gave it his best shot, persuaded him every way he could, tried to. Uh Mark Hatfield, being who he was, said no, I'm not gonna do it. I don't think it's the right thing to do, but I will resign if you are convinced that that's the right thing for the the party in the country. And then Bob Dole also correctly said, absolutely not. You know, we'll win it or we'll lose it, but we're we're not gonna sacrifice you on this altar. Uh and Bob came out and basically told me briefly what had happened, and we went on, we had the vote. Sure enough, we lost by one vote.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

No hard feelings. No.

Host Randal Wallace introduces Dole and Nunn story

SPEAKER_00 7:45

I think that was the kind of the point. No hard feelings. You know, you could have these big debates back in those days and these big votes. And you know, somebody was against you one time. You didn't it wasn't this the situation you see now where the feud forever. Um they just kind of moved on to the next thing. Um the next story has to do with Bondole and um and traveling together and how um again building these relationships help make uh things happen. Uh and you'll hear Sam Nunn talking about he's a Democrat, uh Ted Stevens, a Republican, who I very much admired, and we've done some shows on uh earlier in our podcast history, and of course Bob Dole, as they travel around and trying to figure out how to get a treaty uh put together and passed.

oral history of Senator Sam Nunn - Georgia

SPEAKER_07 8:35

Do any of those trips uh stand out for you? Well, I remember uh when Senator Dole was uh co-chair of what we call the Arms Control Observer Group. Uh Senator Dole and Senator Byrd helped form that group, and Senator Stevens and I had come up with sort of the idea. Uh Senator Stevens and I uh uh decided if we were ever going to have uh Senate confirm or ratify the arms control agreements that were being discussed, we had to be part of the takeoff and not simply expected to vote for it when it landed. And so we formed the Arms Control Observer Group with the complete support of uh Senator Dole and Senator Robert Byrd, who was then uh the the leader of the Senate on the Democratic side, Senator Dole on the Republican side. And uh that was about 1984-85. Uh during that period we traveled together to Geneva, and Senator Dole and Senator Byrd not only empowered Senator Stevens and me as co-chairs, they basically convinced the uh chairman of the committees that this was uh a group that was so important it was going to overlap committees. So we had different people, Armed Services, Foreign Relations, and uh not only that, they decided that they uh would accept uh our concept that they should be co-chairs because we because we knew the leaders were awfully important in any kind of arms control ratification process, and we felt that they themselves should be informed as we went along by the negotiators, meeting with the Russians in Geneva, meeting with our own negotiators, keeping up to date. That went on for two or three years. That's when Santa Dol and I were on the same airplane together and on the same trip together. In terms of um memories, I remember very well when he uh would occasionally dart across to Italy from uh Geneva, and uh basically I remember what a hero he was in Italy because Bob had fought in Italy. Uh that was where I believe that was where he was wounded, and I remember one particular village we went to where he was hailed as the as the hero of all heroes. Uh so we had some of that, but it was a pretty uh also a pretty uh rigorous uh business like and professional effort by uh Democrats and Republicans, and it was an unusually successful effort. It was one of the things that um people ask me today, how do you work across the aisle together? How do you get the Senate to look in the long term rather than simply the short term? And the example I use is the Arms Control Observer Group, but it only worked because the two leaders, uh Bird and Dole, uh wanted it to work and were participants themselves, and eliminated what I call the stovepipe approach to everything, where the committees look at only one part of a picture and no one's looking at the entire picture. So that that was very successful, and I came to know and admire Bob Dole during that uh several year effort.

Host Randal Wallace talks about reaching across the aisle

SPEAKER_00 11:31

One of the more entertaining senators was Alan Simpson. He passed away this year, and we did a show about him. Uh, but he is always great with a one-liner. He was the one that said something about about the AARP, was a uh group of people who had formed to get discount airline tickets. And he had a lot of great vingers like that uh throughout his career. And he also did the gaming style uh video trying to get young people to get out and vote. But um he tells some great stories because he he was a guy that could work across the aisle. He was a great friend with George H.W. Bush, too, by the way. He spoke at his funeral. And he worked for Dole, he was Dole's um assistant leader, and so he dealt with the number two guy on the Democratic side, Alan Cranston, for many, many years. And uh and so he'll talk about reaching across the aisle and working with Alan Cranston, how much he grew to respect him and and how these guys could have these conversations and tell him what the real story was when when sometimes some legislation was getting held up by a senator here or there. And he'll also talk about how important it is that you know your material, you know what you're talking about, and working across the aisle and across the house, um, in a different house of Congress where he was he had had dealt with Tip O'Neill. So these are two really good stories about uh you know, working across the aisle, uh operating in good faith and giving people your word and keeping it, and uh, and I think you you'll find these kind these two stories kind of interesting from a guy who is an outstandingly good uh storyteller.

Oral History of Senator Alan Simpson R - Wyoming

SPEAKER_05 13:03

And uh I remember uh uh Cranston was, you know, here he is watch out for Al. You know, he's he's he's maybe a commie. That's what he is, of course. He's a nuclear-free marriage.

unknown 13:17

God, you know.

SPEAKER_05 13:18

Well then I got to visit with Al and find out he's uh an old jock like I was uh, that he went to Germany and read the Mein Kampf in German, came back here, saw it on a newsstand. He didn't read it in German, but it was he that version came back here and it was totally different. He said, You're not reading this guy. This Al Cranston was a patriot. He said, Beware of Adolf Hitler. The Mein Kampf you're reading in the New York bookstore is not the one in Munich. And it wasn't. I mean, totally different, you know, incendiary out there. And those were things he did, and and I got to know him very well. And uh then I went to his staff. I said, Look, I'm on the Veterans Affairs Committee. What the hell are you doing here? Uh what am I supposed to do? I was the ranking member. Now imagine when the Republicans took over in '80, get this. I suddenly became the chair of immigration refugee policy, uh, nuclear, civilian nuclear, nuclear regulation, and uh veterans' affairs, and the three three ranking members were Ted Kennedy, Al Cranston, and Gary Hart, all three running for president. And I went to each one of them and I said, look, look, guys, you run for president, I'll chair the committee. I know it pains you because I've only been here two years and pisses you off, but it's just the way it is, just a sick shift of politics. And uh you run for president, I'll run the committee, and I won't try to embarrass you, and I don't want you to embarrass me. Well, I'll tell you, it worked, and we had trust, and never, never not one of those three, and they all ran for president. The only testy time was uh uh Tip O'Neill uh had uh he was he I passed the immigration bill. Boy, I was the king of the beasts, you know, it passed by 76 to 20 or something, and then just laid there in the house. And uh I shouldn't use names, but I will. Marty Tolchin became a very good friend of the New York Times, a lovely guy, uh a real, real journalist. One day he's out wandering around and he said, Hey Simpson, uh, do you know Tip O'Neill? I said, Well, not very well. He said, Your bill is over there, you know, just roosting. And and if Tip knew you knew that bill, like you do without staff, he'd be impressed by that and he'd bring it up. I said, Oh, thanks for the tip. Which you see is not supposed to, that would be an evil thing if that were reported. That a New York Times reporter told a sitting senator, you might want to move your bill by this. You know, I suppose that would get everybody in trouble. Anyway, I called Tip and I said, I'm Al Simpson, I got a bill over there, immigration. Oh, geez, that's hot stuff. I said, Well, uh, I can tell you about it, it's a good bill.

SPEAKER_09 16:32

And yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:35

So he uh uh he said, Well, come on over. Then I've got my friend Ari Weiss here, not his friend. You remember Ari Weiss was the Wizard of Oz. I mean, he was an amazing guy and and uh oh very devout uh uh in his religion because he he when it came to the those periods, he walked to his, you know, I don't understand, although my brother uh is now one of the community married into the community, our people, as he said, these are our people. And so anyway, Ari W sat there. Tip said, You got any staff over here with you? I said, No. Well, what the hell is the bill about? And I'd say, it's what it does. He turned to Ari and said, Is that right? And he rolled up his sleeves with a cigar. I choked. I used to smoke three packs a day, and I thought, well, I'll suffer this one through. And uh and at the end he said, uh, I'll be damned. He said, That sounds pretty good. It's gonna be tough, though. It won't be a lot of a lot of controversy. I said, You're not kidding. And uh he uh he then asked a lot more questions, and then R. E. Weiss uh asked a lot of questions, and and when he finished, Tip got right up in my face. He said, I'm gonna tell you something. I'm gonna bring that son of a bitch up before November 1st. But if you say anything to anybody, you'll never see it ever again in your whole life. So I go back to my office. What did Tip say? I don't know. I think God knows. Just hanging by a thread. Never even told my wife 53 years this year, but she never asked much about, you know, she just knew that I was having fun and she she was a great supporter, is a great supporter. Well, sure enough, October, late October, he pulls this thing up. Well, it's election is coming up. And Hart called him and uh and uh Mondale. This was before their primary. Anyway, it had to be because both of them said, Jesus, what are you doing pulling up this unbelievable incendiary bomb while I'm out here in California with working the Hispanic vote, and I'm down in Texas, and Mondale and Hart just assailed him in their own way. He said, Well, I'll tell you what, guys, you run for president and I'll run the house. And I'm gonna get Simpson Bill up there. Well, of course, they tore it, you know. I mean, we got it got it going, it got the debate going. And then the next year we were able to pick up a lot of slack, but that was Tip. And he never violated he this was a handshake, and that's the way we did our business. I was at his uh going-away party at the family table, for God's sake, uh, and talked to him a couple of weeks before he died, and he said, God damn it, I'm falling apart. Just exactly what Thurgood Marshall said. You remember? They got him, how's your press conference? Thurgood said I'm falling apart. And old Tip then was gone in a couple weeks. Wonderful guy. But again, I was I was still in that aura of of of trust. And uh and you just it was easy to do.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Is it

Host Randal Wallace talks about Senator Strom Thurmond

SPEAKER_00 20:05

here's uh uh some stories coming up on one of my favorite people, and that's Strom Thurman. And I knew Senator Thurman uh when he was in his late, like 89 to about 96 years old. Uh I went to Lander College in Greenwood, South Carolina. His sister, Martha Bishop, um taught at Lander, and so she fixed it so that I could spend some time uh around him. I I wouldn't say we were friends or anything, but I did get to help him when he came on campus a couple times to be sort of that guy that ran and ran and ran and took care of things. I remember he he had like a strange way of drinking orange juice, he liked ice in it or something, and um or maybe without ice, I don't remember now, but it was it was I had to run down the cafeteria and get it for him. Um but he uh he was a really, really uh fun guy to be his age. And later on when he was running for the Senate, I worked on that campaign. We're gonna be looking at campaign 1996 uh in our next season because you're gonna hear a lot about Strong Thurman. But these are some fun little stories and interesting stories, and you know, in some ways they are what they are. Um I can say um that I uh never in my own dealings with Senator Thurman did I pick up anything for which he is most famous, which is some of those racial uh positions that he took in the 40s. But he was in his late career, and by then he had walked away from some of that um segregation stuff uh thirty years before. Uh he did like the ladies, and uh and that's kind of well known. So uh, but here is uh Bob Packwood and um Alan Simpson talking about Strom Thurman.

Oral History of Senator Alan Simpson R - Wyoming

SPEAKER_05 21:42

You mentioned going to Strom when you Oh, yeah, I went to Strom and I said uh he said, Helen, how good to have you. I knew your father. Uh your father was a fine man, man of integrity and common sense, joyful person. I enjoyed your dear father. I said. Well, he enjoyed you, Strom. Strom, he had seen Strom the day he jumped on that guy in the hall when he pinned the armborough. My father's office was right there. He came out and Strom sitting on this guy. He said, Now, Mel would you just get back? I'm handling this. I got everything handled here. Keeping him from making the quorum in there. You know that story. Anyway. So anyway, uh, I said, I want to be on the Judiciary Committee. That's when I chaired the Judiciary Committee in the Wyoming House when I was assistant leader of the House and majority leader. And uh he said, I'll talk to my friend Ted. Ted was in the majority, and and that's taken care of. And so, and then Strom said, now we have a good, good, good group of Republicans down except Mathas. We have to watch Matthias. And I said, watch, watch who? He said, Mathass, Mathass, Mac Mathas. Maryland, he always, he never could track you know Matthias because he was a very progressive Republican, marless man. Anyway, Ted came up, my dad had told me, he said, when you get to the Senate, make get to enjoy Ted Kennedy. He he was one ahead of Ted in seniority. Now imagine 62 and Ted's still there. He said, because Ted caused his parents as much pain as you caused your mother and I, and you would enjoy each other. And we do we always have. So Ted put me on there, and I went to his staff, to a wonderful staff, uh Breyer, you know, Steve Breyer on the Supreme Court and Ken Feinberg, uh, who did the settlement of the 9-11 and all the guys, and I said, Look, just tell me what's going on. I didn't come here to trick the just help me. You're professional staff, you're not just Democrats. That's the difference now.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

It's interesting.

oral history of Senator Bob Packwood

SPEAKER_02 23:55

You you mentioned Senator Stennis. Senator Doles told us that Frank Carlson's advice to him, almost his only real advice, was when you get to Washington, be sure to look up Senator Stennis. And in effect one had the sense that you almost should attach yourself to John Stennis, that he's a kind of model senator. Why why do you think why do you think that was?

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Well, I think uh John Stennis was so revered and liked by everybody, modest. Uh but I'm surprised that that would have been Senator Carlson's advice to Bob. Of course, Bob came in 68, so that would be fair enough. Richard Russell was still alive. And of course, he was the patriarch, but he was then sick and he died seven or eight months after that. But but you're right. Coming in 68. Russell wasn't gonna last much longer.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

And and that was notwithstanding his attitude on racial matters. Oh, no. I mean, that that didn't enter into the respect with which he was regarded? No.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Uh first race was never John's big issue. I mean, did he vote with the South? You bet. But did as opposed to Eastland, did he make an issue out of it? No. And he just he was a man you just you could not help but respect. And on some on critical issues, on on uh armed services issues, he was bipartisanly good for seven or eight votes, apart from what you get from committee and what you get anyway. He could influence seven or eight votes like Dick Luger can on foreign relations.

unknown 25:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

Uh and seven or eight on a closed vote is a lot of influence.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

Do you remember there was a vote, um, critical vote when Nelson Rockefeller was vice president, which which reduced the cloture from 67 to 60. Oh, yeah. Do you remember the circumstances surrounding that?

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Because that was pretty controversial. Yeah, it was very controversial. It had to do with, as I recall, with whether or not at the start of a new Senate, a new year, the old rules bound or whether a majority could vote to change the rules. And we just about went through that last year on the judges when the Republicans were getting close to do we have the right to change the rules. Yes, so I remember it very well. It's very controversial.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

And his rulings from the chair were frankly directed toward lowering. Oh, yeah. And and that upset a number of Southern Republicans. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Who didn't forget it. That's correct. You know, that he ex he exactly made the rule that basically you could change the rules at the start by in essence, I think he was saying a majority vote. Uh whereas it would have you know, and the w the interesting part, when I went there, the the rule on filibuster was still two-thirds. Uh they only changed it to to sixty votes. Uh maybe in the first year I was there, and there was a senior senator from from Delaware named John Williams. He in fact he was just there two years, the last of his two years. He was opposed to the change. He used a wonderful expression, and I think in retrospect he was right and we shouldn't have changed. He said, you know, I'm opposed uh I'm opposed to the to the change for this reason, he said. Just by and large, Congress is a grassroots body. He said, if the public really want something, they'll get it. May take three or four Congresses. That's not a long time in the history of the Republic. But he said, the filibuster prevents us from making mistakes. He said, I've come to the conclusion that we make more mistakes in haste than we lose opportunities in delay. That's pretty good advice. Yeah. Conservative with a large and a small C. Bill Saxby was another of our freshmen, by the way, from Ohio.

SPEAKER_02 27:48

Sure. Who had some unkind things to say about uh Bob Dole, remember? I'm surprised, is that right? Yeah. Well, he he he was the one who who was credited with the line that um Dole couldn't sell beer on a troop ship. Or was it ass on a troop ship? Well that's interesting because it's like the garden line with a it's not worth a uh picture of Worm Spit. But but that's that's the line that got printed anyway. Um was was that a was that just kind of a personal animosity?

SPEAKER_01 28:22

Saxby was you know, he only served one term, didn't run again. Right. And he used his whole first term to go to funerals in India and things like that. He loved it. He just traveled around the world and uh he was he was the one this one time when we violated seniority, and Carl Munt was the senior member on the appropriations committee, and he had a stroke. He was out for about six months. He couldn't perform his duties. So thank you. He was a motion was made uh to take his seniority away, and I mean he couldn't perform, he wasn't there. And and even this now is almost an I mean almost an unheard of thing to do this, but they went ahead. And so Saxby was detailed to go out and tell Mrs. Mutt. And he went out and told her and he got back, and somebody said, How did she take how'd you say he's about as welcome as a turd in a punch bowl?

SPEAKER_02 29:22

So it's it's safe to say he was a plain spoken.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

And and as I recall, didn't he didn't he wasn't he was he attorney general? He was attorney general for a brief period. And this is where they asked him to do something in Watergate, and he said I told him to go piss up a rope. And that was on live television. Well, yeah, he was very colorful.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

Quick introjection here. I mentioned about Rockefeller, I'm writing a biography of Nelson Rockefeller. And um he Dick Parsons was his guy. I didn't know that. And Dick Parsons, throughout this whole debate, Dick Parsons, Rockefeller, of course, was dyslexic, so he loved charts. So Dick Parsons and the you know the arcane rules of the Senate would have you know baffled anyone, and and a new vice president. Dick Parsons did two things. First of all, he made a chart that Nelson took Nelson through the entire, you know, and he was so impressed with it, he took the chart to the White House to show the president, you know, who actually had a little more experience on Capitol Hill than he did, but then Parsons sat in the gallery and signaled the vice president basically how to rule throughout this debate. And when it was over, Strom Thurman was in particular unhappy about this. And he's in the cloakroom, Mr. Vice President. You know, I want to talk to you. And he was cordially but you know, unmistakably expressing his dissatisfaction. And Rockefeller said, Well, Strom, I tell you what, why did you talk to my counsel? He's he's here right here. Well, in those days, Dick Parsons, you know, great big guy, had a big afro.

SPEAKER_09 31:08

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 31:10

And Nelson says, Strom, let me introduce you to my political counsel. And Thurman took one look at and that was basically uh the end of the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Well, Strom's the guy one time in our Tuesday luncheon, the flip and saunder horses had been here. They're born black and they turn white. And Strom says, wouldn't it be wonderful if people did that? Oh God. Do you think Thurman did Thurman ever change in his in this sense? He was one of the early ones to start having from the blacks on his staff and wooing the backs. And in his last campaigns, he did relatively well for a Republican with blacks. Yeah. No, he changed in that sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:53

Were they without naming names, were there out and out segregationists?

SPEAKER_01 31:57

Oh, Eastland was. No question about it. I think I think probably both Alan Ellender and uh John McClellan from Arkansas were uh Did people wonder? I remember when Eastland, I was in one of the sessions having drinks in the leader's office, although maybe in Hugh Scott's at this time, the trend kind of the that theory continued. Eastland was there. And Mac Matthias, which is another one of the class of 68, and somebody else introduced a bill that all members of Congress have to live in the district. And Eastland says never pass. Somebody said, Why not?

SPEAKER_09 32:40

Yeah.

Host Randal Wallace talks about civility and changing the Congressional record

SPEAKER_00 32:42

About Senator Bob Packwood, and and I bleeped out, obviously a word um that I don't want to have on the show. So um, but he was quoting John Eastland, and I think you can figure out what he was saying. But um this next story is really, really interesting. And Bob Packwood, who is so soft-spoken, and uh, you know, I've tried to raise his volume and it's it's tough to do, but um, he is such a really good storyteller. Uh and he's gonna tell this one about a a debate on a missile defense system that uh that Richard Dixon was trying to get through, and um it's between um two senators, uh one of them, William Fulbright, had been the president of a college, and you'll hear him tell he'll be making a point of it, and he's talking about reading something in the Russian uh uh in the original Russian and documents, and and and pack was talking about what a brain power it was uh matching uh of these two really brilliant senators, but that later on after the vote they take the thing out of the record. Uh they take the debate out of the record so that the official thing for all historians to look at is not the actual debate that was in the Senate. Uh so this is really kind of a a fun story, but it does speak to civility uh and uh how much more uh those guys respected each other and didn't allow each other to be embarrassed uh in in the in history or on the record.

oral history of Senator Bob Packwood R - Oregon

SPEAKER_02 34:10

D do you think the Senate has deteriorated in the for example, um debate mattered thirty or forty years ago. Oh, yeah. Didn't it?

SPEAKER_01 34:19

One of the great one of the great debates. Bob was there, but it's not in the congressional record because it was on a sensitive matter. I'll kind of d describe it to you. It's the best debate I've ever seen in my life, politics or out of politics. It's the summer, I think, of 1969. We're voting on whether or not to authorize the ABM, the anti-ballistic missile. Nixon wanted to trade it away in negotiations, but he couldn't trade it away if he wasn't authorized to build it. And also it became sort of a flashpoint for Hawks and doves on the Vietnam War. So finally we have a closed session of the Senate. No press, nobody there. The only outsider is the guy that's doing this, and taking the notes. Ninety-nine senators. And the two and there's maybe ten that had not announced, and everybody knew it was going to be a close vote. And the two senators that were doing the proponent, and the opponent were both Democrats. The proponent of the ABM was Scoop Jackson of Washington. Opponent was Stuart Symington, both on the Armed Services Committee, both bright, both reasonably good speakers, both access to the identical information. And 99 senators were there for debate because it was ten hours of debate, equally divided. And Symington opened first and he had some charts showing Russian SS missiles of some kind. And he goes for an hour, not many notes, and damn good. And I thought, wait at the end of that, but I said, that's gonna be the end of the ABM. You cannot debate that. Then Scoop got up and he went for an hour. He says, Let me take you just a few charts further. My good friend says, Here's the Russian SS-19 or something like that. And he says, And these are the multiple warheads. And he finishes, and I thought, that's it, we're gonna have the ABM. Then they ask questions of each other, and it was like watching two great fencers. They knew the answers to the questions, each of them trying to pin the other. And this goes on for almost an hour, so they've now occupied three hours. And then other people got to ask questions, and about the fourth one in was uh Senator Fulbright. And of course, you you in those days they did address to the chair, uh Mr. President, will the senator from Washington yield to a question? He didn't turn to the senator and say it, you addressed to the chair. Or I'm saying Mr. President, will the senator from Washington yield to a question? And Fulbright would have a tendency on occasion to do things like I don't know if my colleague has had a chance to read the Chinese translation of the Russian copy of the treaty, but if not, let me tell you what it says. You know, I think because you know he was an academic. A little bit of showing off. Oh, yeah, and he was president of the University of Arkansas at one time. And so Scoop says yes. And and uh Fulbright goes uh I don't know if my good friend from Washington has had a chance yet to digest the remarks of sworn Soviet Foreign Minister Grumiko in Warsaw three weeks ago, in which he indicated that uh Soviet Union wanted to reach a new era of detente, new era of friendship, new era of cordiality with the United States. And doesn't my friend from Washington think that before we rush pell mail into this unproven missile system, we should give just some little credence to the words of the Soviet foreign minister. You have to picture this. They're standing, you stand, you know, and then they're not ten feet apart. Scoop points at him like this, and he goes, Let me call a memory for the senator from Arkansas. Then he moves his finger all the way around the semicircle, he says and to the others who weren't here that day. The morning in October of 1962, when President Kennedy called Foreign Minister Grumiko into his office and asked if the Soviets had any missiles in Cuba. No. Had any Warsaw-Packed country missiles been transported on Soviet ships to Cuba? No. Were there any Soviet soldiers on the ground in Cuba assembling missiles from any place? No. Then Scoop gestures like this. Then the president opened the drawer of his desk, and Scoop opened and took some papers out. Then the president opened the drawer of his desk. Showing the Russian ships. Showing the missiles on the decks. The picture is so clear. You could see the Soviet soldiers on the ground and the chevrons on their sleeve, and he goes, and Andre Gromyko left that room and acknowledged a liar. And then Scoop goes like this. But I wouldn't ask anybody to sleep safely tonight based upon the believability of Henri Gromyko. When the vote eventually came, it passed by one vote. And the answer to that question was what probably brought two or three people over. Now you go look at the congressional record on this. First, there's still big blanks in it because of security. Secondly, you get to this question. There's a question by Fulbright and an answer by Scoop, and it's not this question and the answer. And so I talked to Dorothy Falstack, who was Scoop's person on this. And I said, Dorothy, what happened to this question and this answer? And she kind of smiled. She said, Well, afterwards, Senator Fulbright staff came and asked if we minded if the record could be corrected. Now, you were always in those days entitled to correct your comments. You can't correct somebody else's. But Scoop had won. He was generous, so he agreed. So the question and answer is not the question and answer. So unless you were there and heard it, there's no record of it.

SPEAKER_02 40:07

We mentioned Senator Stennis, very different person. Was Margaret Chase Smith sort of a conscience of the Senate? I mean, did she have that kind of aura? Probably because of the McCarthyism and her independence.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Because of her sp because of her speech about McCarthy, sorry, it initially started. And she did have that. She was not a powerful senator, but she did have that aura. And part maybe a part of it's the fact you're a woman, uh the only woman in those days in the Senate. Uh yeah, she did have that reputation. And she was she was admired. She was not a powerhouse. Yeah.

Host Randal Wallace introduces Senator Thad Cochran

SPEAKER_00 40:43

Now, um, Senator Thad Cochran, who is the next senator, I was going to let him tell a story. He's going to talk about Richard Nixon. And I and I just want to preface it by saying uh Senator Cochran's passed away. Um I don't know how much he had kept up with the lawsuit that Jeff Shepard had filed in 2013 that basically exonerated President Nixon and um, as we've heard on our show, uh exposed all the misconduct that the Watergate special prosecutors engaged in and Judge Sarika. And so we don't have respect for that. Um but he didn't know that. And so what you're going to hear him talk about is the day he would like to relive, which was the impeachment of Richard Nixon. And I anytime I hear these things and I know are dated and are not aware of what we have exposed on this show and what Jeff Shepard has shown, um, I like to preface it so that you realize that they are talking about a historical event in which they don't know all the circumstances that we now know, thanks to all of the uh material that the National Archives have uh released and exposed about the Watergate Special Prosecutor. So with that, here's here is Senator Thad Cochrane.

oral history of Senator Thad Cochran R - Mississippi

SPEAKER_03 41:49

Um I sometimes ask people this question when I'm doing oral history interviews if if there's a day that you could relive because it's very important to you.

SPEAKER_04 42:00

Uh is any any day coming to No, I'm going back now and I thought about the impeachment of Richard Nixon right after I got up here. You know the elections of 72 was it was the campaign year with Watergate. And of course it wasn't until after that campaign was over that all everything started coming out. And I I recall I defended uh uh President Nixon without knowing what the facts were. And that was something that I wished I had said a little differently. I remember one time seeing a headline in the newspaper in one of my county papers, uh Claver County, County States Court gets another state south of Vicksburg. And I've been down there to speak to some group and I was asked a question about the impeachment proceedings that were developing at the talk of impeachment. And I think well, President Nixon, in my opinion, is unimpeachable. And then I was my trust and confidence idiom and his intelligence and his lawyership skills and uh course the headline conference, Nixon unimpeachable, you know, what it comes to conference. I thought, oh wish I could have changed that up a little bit. So there have been talking about that one comes to battle.

SPEAKER_03 43:30

Mentioning Nixon, I think maybe this is where we ought to uh conclude today, but um, did you spend any time with him? What was he like?

SPEAKER_04 43:39

Well, I'm one of the brightenings, uh, and with a command of foreign relations and international.

Host Randal Wallace discusses the relationship between Senator Everett Dirksen and Senator Howard Baker, Father in law and son in law in the Senate

SPEAKER_00 43:45

And I want to close now with with two stories from Senator Howard Baker. And Howard Baker is one of my favorite people, he's from Tennessee, and uh he's such a folksy um guy, and yet he is um uh was a was a really out. Outstanding Senate majority leader and minority leader uh in his day, and he was a chief of staff for Ronald Reagan later. But if you don't know your history extremely well, you might not realize that he was also Everett Derson, who was largely considered one of the great minority leaders in the history of the Senate. He never had a majority uh for the Republican Party. He was from Illinois. He is um a central figure in passing all the civil rights bills that Lyndon Johnson got through the Senate in 64, 65, and 68. Uh and um Everett has this great voice. We we actually have a show early on in our catalog, it's probably third season, called The Wizard of Ooze, because that's what they called him. And uh Everett Dirksen's just a really fascinating guy and a very wise man. And uh you're gonna hear uh Jim Baker or Howard Baker uh tell his story about lessons that he learned from Everett Dirksen, who was his father-in-law. So that makes it a very unique relationship. And then um you're gonna hear him talk when you go straight into a conversation about Senator Jesse Hamilton, North Carolina, a story about him and about voting for the debt ceiling, and the point about you know, doing what you can to help your president get his program through, uh, which is uh always important when you're uh in the minority or or or in the majority working for a president of your own party. Um and it just speaks to the civility and how things, you know, work in the United States Senate.

Oral History of Senator Howard Baker R - Tennessee

SPEAKER_08 45:29

Uh what did I learn from Dirksen? I will choose one thing to tell you, Roger. I I remember I was grumpy about some idea of foreign policy. I've forgotten what it was. And I also remember I was traveling with uh uh who was it? Abe Ribokoff, said Ribbokoff, a Democrat, a very senior Democrat from Connecticut. We were traveling in the Middle East and we were in last in Egypt. And uh we got on the plane, I approached the plane, uh pressed out there, and uh I made some smart remark about some item of administration policy, and we got on the plane uh Rubikov very quietly said, Howard, I've discovered over the years that if I save by criticism of the administration until I get home, that both I and the country are better off. I've always remembered that, and I always followed that. But Dirksen uh in the same vein, and I Dirksen came to me one day and said, the president's arriving at Andrews, and I would like you to go with me to greet him. And I said, uh, really, Senator, I don't want to do that. He said, Well, you should. And I did. He said, notwithstanding our difficulties, the president is the embodiment of our national sovereignty. He's returning from overseas, and we should be there to express our support. Not of his issues necessarily or his positions, but of his role as president, or as Dirk's as you say, as chief magistrate. I love that expression.

SPEAKER_02 47:28

There's a scene that I remember Joel told me about um, I think it involved you and Jesse Helms. Was a it was a vote. I mean, literally, Jesse's was the vote. Uh, and I think I don't know whether it was Teffra, but it was one of those post-81 texts.

SPEAKER_08 47:44

I'll tell you, Jesse Helmsdore, if you want to hear that. It may be the one that he's talking about. I remember, I guess in February of '81, the first serious challenge I had as the new majority leader of the United States said, the first is Bill Nola. The first Republican leader said, Bill Nola of California. But the first challenge I had was when we had to vote on a debt limit increase. And I assumed that that would all go okay. But then as I began to count heads, I mean Howard Green came to me and said, I don't believe you're gonna win this. And I got a bunch of the freshman centers together in my office around the conference table, and we talked and carried on. And it was clear that I didn't convince anybody we were gonna lose that thing. And I the bells rang for a vote, and we all left my office and went up to the floor to vote. As I went out, I saw Jesse Helms. And I said, Jesse, I got a big problem. I don't think I'm gonna get these new freshman senators to vote for this debt limit increase. And after we voted, he said, Harry, can I talk to him? And I said, Well, of course you can talk to him. So he came back in. Jesse did, Jesse Helms, and they were all gathered there. And uh he said, Gentlemen, I understand you're not gonna vote for this debt limit increase. And he said, Well, I understand that. And I understand many of you ran against it. And I want you to know I never voted for a debt limit increase. But I never before had Ronald Reagan as my president, and I'm gonna do it, and so are you. And I got all of them but one. But that was repeated with Sir Robin Thurman, who did the same thing. But uh, you know, the old heads. Your earlier question, what effect did uh senior service have on the gym members? In that case, the ones with experience had a profound effect on the outcome of that vote. And without success in that vote, I don't know what our leadership would have been like,

Closing music

SPEAKER_08 51:18

I think.