Latest / BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback / Episode 438 BOB DOLE The Life That Brought Him There (Part 19) The Senate (B) The Senate Leaders

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Episode 438 BOB DOLE The Life That Brought Him There (Part 19) The Senate (B) The Senate Leaders · BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback

• 0:25
  SPEAKER_10: What is changing on the point?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_07: It's not factual in this sense.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_07: Lyndon Johnson would be in hell today if he had to be a leader with fifty-one, forty-nine.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_07: You must keep in mind that his majority was sixty.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_07: That's a big difference.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_10: Yes.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, I think actually I've heard Dolphins say when Mike Mansbone had sixty-seven at one point.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_10: That's right.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_10: He says it's a lot easier to delete when you got sixty-seven votes.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_07: And I think Lindsay Johnson had over sixty.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_07: That makes a big difference.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_10: Um there is a school of thought that says, you know, if you don't particularly care about getting things done, being minority leader is actually more fun than being majority leader.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_10: Uh I'm not sure about fun, but what's what what what's attractive about each position and what's what's less so?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it depends a little bit on how many uh people constitute your majority.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you've got a comfortable majority, I would say it's always more fun being in the majority, uh, because you really can work your will and uh, you know, with a little help from Republicans.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean Mike Mansfield in many respects had had his own issues within his caucus because of the South and the difficulties that he had in uh keeping um some degree of unity and cohesion.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh same with Lyndon Johnson.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: But when you've got sixty-seven senators as they had, it's a little different story than if you had fifty-one like I had been in the majority.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And Bob Dole has had similar majorities and minorities, but I think that uh so that it starts with that.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the majority leader clearly is the 600-pound gorilla when it comes to your ability to set the agenda, your ability to orchestrate uh a legislative response to a president who is not of your party, which is what my circumstances were, you are sort of the alternative voice.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: You are the person to respond to uh the president uh uh um when when you are the the majority leader and and he's the uh the the leader of the Republican um ranks.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so so it starts with that.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think a realization that both from a legislative as well as a political point of view, you're in a very commanding position to at least to articulate to the country uh what um what you like and what you don't like.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um the minority position if you are a 49 vote caucus is in a relatively strong position.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: You have the ability to express yourself with regard to the agenda, even though you don't set it.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's very important for the majority leader to deal with you fairly frequently.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And in in all of my years, uh we were in that proximity of 51, 52 votes, and so uh it was uh a far more uh uh far more challenging partnership for the two leaders.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: I remember Trent Lott and I had to work through what we called the power sharing agreement because we were at a point where we were at 50-50 for a while, even debated how would we deal with managing the Senate with 50-50 uh relationships in our caucuses.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: So um it's uh it's probably a little more fun, uh at least a little less responsibility and a little more opportunity to uh to be critical where you want to be uh when you're in the minority.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but when you've got that partnership, um there is a responsibility that comes with it.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's a little bit different, I think, than when it was what it was like in the 60s and and early 70s when one party had two-thirds of the vote.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_05: See, when you get in a leadership position like Bob did and like I did, uh you you know you still have your same philosophy, you still have your ideology, but you also have to come to terms with the fact that you're not a dictator.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_05: You are the leader and you're charged and the responsibility not only of leading your party and in one uh body of the Congress, but in finding a way to get things done, which means you have to work with moderates and liberals and you know, Democrats and everybody, and conservatives certainly, to shape uh a consensus or a way to get to an agreement uh that is good for the country.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_05: And uh Bob uh was good at doing that.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_05: Uh you ha if you're gonna be a successful leader, you have to learn to do it.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_05: And the minute you do, your friends uh that share your philosophy or from your region will then say, What happened?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and they'll start attacking you.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_10: Is pragmatism a dirty word?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_05: In some in some uh areas.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_05: Now, I I don't uh I'm not a total uh pragmatist.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_05: I am uh and Bob too, I think.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_05: Uh there is a grain of populism in me, but I also uh I think it's a genetic part of my body to want to get things done.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_05: Why would you want to come to Washington, D.C., for heaven's sake, and and live and serve in the Senate if you're not going to get anything done?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_05: When you could be living back home, better life, making more money, more time with your family.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_05: You have to really want to be here and want to get something done.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_05: If you're in the Senate as a job or just to survive, man, I feel sorry for you.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_10: Well, that that that's fascinating because as as the conservative movement has evolved and grown in many ways, you know, there is this libertarian streak here.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_10: Sure.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_10: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_10: And I'm wondering about the the conflict.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_10: There are a lot of Republicans who basically believe that government is the problem.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_10: So how do you become the party of government if at the same time you really harbor those profound suspicions about it?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_05: Well, it is a conundrum in a way.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but I'm not a libertarian.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_05: I do think there is a role for the government, and if it's not what it should be, then we ought to do something about it.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I think that uh, you know, uh I do think government uh, you know, is not effective, not efficient, doesn't, you know, bureaucracy's not good, uh, it's hard to make them function properly.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_05: Um but uh and I think government tries to do way too much.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I still hew to that same basic philosophy.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_05: I still believe that the uh the best government is the least government closest to the people.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_05: I still believe the private enterprise will always do a better job than FEMA, uh the Federal Emergency Management Administration.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_05: I think uh, you know, agriculture policy uh uh that's run out of Washington, D.C.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_05: probably doesn't relate a lot of times to the Kansas uh wheat roar or the Mississippi cotton planter.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_05: So uh yeah, I still have I have that strain in me.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, but I've also been uh reading a book uh recently I find quite interesting, but maybe because of my background, but because of what it says.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_05: The title of it is How the Scots Invented the Modern World.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_05: And if you go back and study the history of Scots and what they did for the world, uh one of the things they did, David Hume and others, talked about uh, you know, the human nature, uh passions, you're inclined to have your passions override your good judgment judgment.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, the bad is a very powerful force.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_05: And one of the ways you control that is you begin to have a rule of law.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_05: You have a government that says, no, wait a minute, you can't rape somebody, you can't steal some property's property, you can't just shoot somebody if you're getting uh angry at them.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_05: And you've got to have some entity that uh brings order to man and to society.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_05: Now, the problem is when that government become, you know, wants to become too powerful and starts trying to dictate and uh take and give uh too many things.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_05: That so there's a there's a delegate balance there, but that is uniqueness of uh our uh American former government.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um I think about it a lot that we don't take an oath to the people, we don't take an oath to some particular leader, we take an oath to the Constitution.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_05: We take an oath to support and defend a set of principles and ideals unique in the history of mankind.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_05: And uh we should you know be careful how we do that.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_04: Unique in the history of mankind.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_04: I I I love that line.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_04: And I was always fascinated to hear these folks who were in leadership talk about uh the country and the Senate and how and how the system works and and uh and you know how much easier it was if you got 60 votes instead of 51.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um really old was the one that I remember as a uh teenager adult, a young adult in the 1996, which was such a big year for me.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_04: Um the two guys that I remember going into uh adulthood as the leaders, and they had a really tough job because at one point they were 50-50 split and had to work a power structure out in order to get the thing into the world, and you can see that that relationship that they had is one of the things that made it work, and I think having a good relationship between the two leaders is pretty important, and uh this episode is sort of a look at the tools and the rules and the and the people who have been the leaders uh in the Senate for decades, and so that's what we're gonna be looking at here.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_04: And I I found this kind of interesting, and it reminded me of waking waking up epiphany or whatever the word is uh for when I got elected to the public office on a little city council here in South Carolina.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_04: Um you know, you throw rocks at the incumbents when you're a challenger and you how you're gonna change everything for the better.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_04: And then you get there and you realize these guys are a lot smarter than you realize they were.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_04: I think my first uh public comments as a council member when we were doing the Round the Horns was uh the Round the Horn section, which is at the end of the meeting when we get to say whatever we wanted to say, uh, was you know that I was amazed at how much smarter all of them look now that I was on this side of the desk.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_04: And uh Trent Lott makes that point.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_04: He and Howard Baker, two of the truly great leaders uh in the history of the United States Senate.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_05: Uh when I became leader, when I succeeded Bob Dole, even though I had come up through the chairs, you know, had been in two leadership positions in the House, had been in two leadership positions in the Senate before I became his successor as majority leader, when I got in that leader's office, I was stunned by how much more time I had to spend on getting intelligence briefings and dealing with international issues and trade issues, and uh every you know, leader, country's leader that would come to town, they want who do they want to see?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_05: They want to see the president, the secretary of the state, uh the speaker, and the leader of the Senate.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_05: And and so, and I at first I, you know, I said I I don't I don't really want to do that, you know.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_05: Uh but then a couple of times it was very clear that I was causing some international disruptions here.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_05: These people felt snubbed that uh the majority leader of the Senate would not meet with them.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_05: So you host these meetings and then you begin to get a feel for what's happening in Eastern Europe or in South America or in Asia, and you you look at the Andean area and you didn't even know there was such a thing.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_05: And uh so that clearly forces you, I think, to uh come to terms with uh uh the impact of uh what we do here, not only how it affects our constituents back home, but uh how it affects the world and our and uh our relationship with them.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_05: So uh it it is a very different place.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_05: I personally still prefer the House.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_05: Even though I've been in the Senate uh, you know, a little longer now than I was in the House.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_05: I was in the House 16 years.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, I I I just uh uh sometimes I just get very embarrassed that the Senate uh slides off into uh you know endless feudal debate.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_10: Was that frustrating for Dole?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, I'm sure it was.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_05: Uh but I think he understood it maybe a little better and uh adjusted to it uh uh uh quite well.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_05: But I do think it even then it was better than it is now, as tough as it was, by the way, during the Nixon era and all that went on there and and then being leader in the eighties, although I think uh or in the uh uh late eighties and nineties, I do think that that was kind of a you know the uh the best era for Republicans in the in the eighties with Reagan and the nineties with the majority, and and Bob sort of rolled the tide, or maybe he pushed the tide to that point and you know to the crest uh when he became uh majority leader and and then ran for president and was our our nominee.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_08: Mike Mansfield or later to Bob Byrd and say, boys, look, I I know what you're doing, and I understand it, I'd be even sympathetic, but that's not gonna work.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_08: And as long as you had enough to stop it, meaning uh at least thirty-nine votes or uh forty four votes, that you could stop it.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_08: So both leaders uh have an important role.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_08: Let me let me say this self self-serving statement, but recognizing the importance of both leaders, majority-minority.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_08: When I was first elected majority leader and first went on the floor that day, the first thing I did was go over to Bob Byrd.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_08: And I said, Bob, I will never know the rules and precedent of the Senate the way you do.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_08: But I'll make you a deal.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_08: I will never surprise you if you won't surprise me.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_08: He thought about it and said, Let me think about it.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_08: He came back later that afternoon and said, Okay.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_08: And we never did.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_08: And I think that tradition is carried on.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_08: I think Dole adopted that point of view as well.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_08: And it's a good sound position, even if I did first advocate it, because the the system itself and the rules of the Senate are such that there's plenty of room for disagreement, plenty of room for controversy, and to do so within the framework of the organization without sneaking up on your adversary.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_04: It is interesting that the thing they talk about, these leaders, is the relationships that the two leaders, the majority, majority minority leader have to have, and then the relationships that have to be built amongst all the senators.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_04: And it goes to one of the things I've said over and over again throughout our entire podcast run is that relationships are one of, if not the most important, ingredient that we need to be building to make government work.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_04: Because I mean it's defeated in anything you do, any endeavor that you do.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_04: And um that is the senators about the tools that a majority and minority leader need to make a senate work.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that is a fascinating conversation to hear them talk about the power of a majority leader and minority leader, and how the tools they have in their hands um to make the Senate work, which in turn makes the government work.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_10: What are your tools?
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_05: If anything, the weapons No, no, that's one of the weaknesses of uh uh the position of majority leader uh in the Senate.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_05: Uh first of all, it's not a constitutional position.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_05: Uh you only the only thing you have, the only power is the power, persuasion, and respect for the position.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_05: You have uh no sticks, hardly at all, and all almost no carrots.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_05: There's not a lot you can do to a senator or for a senator.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_05: Now, if you really work at it, you develop a little uh, you know, a little uh box of tools you can use, uh you can freeze them out a little bit, or you can maybe assist them in maneuvering through the committee assignments, or maybe what I used when I was in the house, and remember, uh I was the whip in the minority in the house, was I realized that uh the best uh tool I had, the best uh uh uh carrot I had was the administration.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_05: I had the Reagan administration.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_05: So I became uh the go-to shop for a local congressman.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe you had a you know second-term congressman from New York, and he was having a problem with agriculture over the apple crop.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_05: So he would come to see me, and then I could go to the Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Butts, yeah, and say, Now, look here, uh, this Congress has got a problem here.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_05: You're not responding, you're not taking care of him, and this is not unreasonable.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_05: You get a result.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_05: That is appreciated.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_05: So you can begin to build up uh a certain amount of uh currency that you can then use to get uh uh return failures or votes.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_05: You think the job will change significantly, say, since the legendary days of an LBJ?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_05: Oh yeah, it's changed a lot.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_05: But there are a lot of similarities too.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_05: Uh you know, Lyndon Johnson was uh bigger than life, very aggressive.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_05: If you treated senators today like he treated senators, uh that would not work.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_05: Uh you can't intimidate senators or get up in their face and shout them down.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_05: Um less party loyalty today than 50 years ago.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_10: I mean, less sense.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_05: I do I do think in a way uh there's there's uh some degree of less uh party loyalty.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um and I think uh probably you know leadership roles are tougher.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I'm I'm convinced that the toughest job in this city is majority leader of the Senate, whether it's a Republican or a Democrat, uh, because of the weakness of the powers that you have.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_05: The Speaker of the House has the rules committee, and uh he or she can basically lay down the law.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_05: The president of the United States, he makes a decision, people move.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_05: The majority leader of the Senate makes a decision, it goes to subcommittee.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_05: It is a tough job.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_05: Uh but it can be done if you have a uh, you know, that's you have to at some point, sort of what I describe as get on your horse and ride.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_05: You basically say, damn the torpedoes, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do it now.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_05: As long as it takes, we're gonna get a result.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_10: Is it easier to be minority leader?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_10: Sure, biscake.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_05: Uh maybe Bob Dole and Howard Baker and uh Everett Dirksen and their years in the minority built the rules to their benefit, which, by the way, when you become the majority, works against you.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_05: I've got to go.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_10: What are the weapons that a majority or minority leader have?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_10: I mean, there's the legend of Lyndon Johnson, and clearly that Senate's long gone.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_10: Um the political culture, that political culture's long gone.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_10: Um what carrots and what sticks?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_11: Well, you use available.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_11: You use the word weapons.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_11: If you're a leader, you don't use weapons.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_11: You use implements.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_11: Uh and uh and uh my dad was in the Senate when Lyndon was president, and uh he needed dad's vote.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_11: Hell there were only 33 Republicans in the Senate.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_11: Think about that.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_11: And dad was supposed to be right of Goldwater, so he he wasn't, but he was described that.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_11: But uh Lyndon called him in.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_11: He said, now Millward, Milward, here I mean if Wildman, then what it must be very arid out there, and probably just jackrabbits starving to death, carrying on water, laughing, you know.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_11: He said, I can give you a dam, I'll give you a thing out there, something that'd really be good for you.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_11: Just because just for your little old vote, and that's it.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_11: I don't play that game.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_11: God, old Lyndon was just furious.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_11: And that was Lyndon.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_11: He he and that wasn't leadership, that was clubbing people to death.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_11: What did they call it?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_11: Uh bourbon and water and a twist of the arm uh was the Lyndon Johnson cocktail.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_11: Anyway, uh uh Dole uh uh he uh he knew what you were interested in, what you needed.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_11: But where he was particularly uh with his leadership was when, you know, I I don't know when he slept, you know.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_11: I was it was, you know, he he just and and all the crew, you know, I was right across the hall from him where the media couldn't see when I snuck over there to do my business.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_11: It was right next to the rotunda.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_11: And then I'd go right across the hall into Sheila's office, Sheila Burke and Joyce and all the rest of them.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_11: And uh and then right into Dole's office.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_11: I could get in there at any any point.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_11: He said, just come in whenever you got something.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_11: Well you then you know he's visiting with people of affairs of state, you know, and very respected.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_11: Majority leader of the Senate and then a minority.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_11: Anyway, he uh when he'd say uh when you'd get a little message, uh, hey Dole would like four or five of you to meet in the office, you know, you knew that it was time to get off your butt there was something going on.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_11: He'd sit there.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_11: Well, where are we with this thing here?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_11: You know, you guys have been working on that now for a couple weeks.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_11: Getting close or anything?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_11: Well, no, we're we're working on it.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_11: And he'd just he'd just keep pushing, pushing.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_11: He had an amazing persistence.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_11: Push, push, push, and you never knew.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_11: I mean, you could be at a cocktail party or or you could be on the floor between votes.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_11: He'd say, How you doing on that?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_11: Yeah, you know, and going like that.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_11: And he'd say, Oh, well, we're working on it.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_11: So he he never forgot he could juggle all that.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_11: I never saw him carry notes around.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_11: Uh but he never forgot uh the lay of the land.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_11: Uh and uh and he he his his his charm of leadership was persistence, trust, and integrity of his own extraordinary uh uh worth.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_11: Uh but uh he just kept silently sometimes and and pushing, but never getting in there and saying, look, I'm gonna crack heads now unless you get this damn thing done.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_11: He just he just would say, Well, I'm gonna check back within a couple days, see where you are on this.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_11: And he'd do that with Democrats and Republicans.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_11: And then I don't know what George Mitchell shared with you, but I'm sure you could see a deep admiration that George had for Dole.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_11: And and while he was doing his business uh with uh Mitchell and Byrd, uh, I was doing my business with Cranston and uh and uh my old pal from Kentucky.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_11: And uh and uh uh sometimes things would break down between Dole and Mitchell, and then I'd go over to Cranston uh and say, you know, he'd say, well, this isn't going anywhere because we know that Jesse's really messing around with us and going to blow something up.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_11: You know, they were always talking about Jesse blowing something up, and we were always talking about somebody else on their side blowing something up.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_11: And uh I'd say, no, Al, here's the real story.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_11: Wendell Ford was the other one.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_11: He called me a big skinny cowboy son of a bitch, and I called him the worst governor of Kentucky's ever had.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_11: But anyway, we had a very nice uh relationship, Wendell and I, and Al Cranston.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_11: And and we would, there weren't many times, but but there's a reason for everything, and then there's a real reason.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_11: And in Washington, people hang up on quote, the reason or or the truth, and then there's the real reason or the real truth.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_11: And so I would just say, let me tell you what's happening.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_11: We got a guy in there, and I wouldn't use names who's doing this.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_11: It ain't Jesse.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_11: And I tell you why he's doing it, because your guy, Ted, stuck it in his ear about two years ago and he never forgot it, and he's feeling very petty, and he's gonna screw you.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_11: And and at least then they'd go back to their leadership and say, this is not about some giant trick.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_11: It's about pettiness, but it's real stuff instead of you know hypothetical stuff.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_11: So we could we we could always get through.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_11: And when Cranston went down in flames, you know, that was very sad because all he had done was what the rest of us had done, except none of us liked to raise money like Al did.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_11: He'd get on the phone, raise money all day in a separate place, like you couldn't do it, but forgot to tell his staff that, you know, two weeks before he'd talked to this guy who dropped uh a cycle on him of five grand each election, forgot to tell them not to have him come in a week later on an appointment.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_11: And they tied it together.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_11: Cranson asked the guy for money.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_11: Now, three weeks later, the guy comes in for a for a visit.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_11: And they said, This is just ghastly.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_11: And he was nearly in tears.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_11: He got up on the floor and said, You know, all of you have done this.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_11: Except except your staff told you.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_11: He didn't blame his staff, he just but he he he he loved, he spent the whole any any free hour was spent and getting it from Republicans.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_11: Well, enough of that.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_11: I won't romance.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_10: What what are the tools that a majority leader still has?
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_07: He has the tool of persuading, and he has the position to do that.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_07: He is the one who has a major role in developing and appointing members of whatever committee you want to call it, steering committee or the committee of committees, what have you.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_07: Now there are people who have applied for the last 25 years for a certain committee but never get in.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_07: On the other hand, there's somebody who came along just four years ago, and he gets in.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_07: And it's and the leader can say, well, we have to keep in mind regional representation.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_10: And it is presumed that those who get on the committee are eternally grateful to the leader for putting.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_10: And a minority leader.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_10: What what what uh does a minority leader have?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_10: Same thing.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_10: Okay.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_07: And he today has uh great power, he says, well, we we we don't want this bill passed.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_07: Sixty vote rule and the filibuster and in in that sense, he's much more powerful than then than Johnson.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_07: Oh my foot.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_10: Because if you look at the goal being legislation, it's been said, I've heard it said, that in some ways it's more fun to be minority leader than majority leader.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, don't you believe it?
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_08: I've been both.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_08: And majority is better.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_08: Minority leader's energy is challenging.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_08: It may have fit Dole's personality better than majority leader.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_08: Well, it is because he he was able to crystallize an issue and formulate a position that uh would go right to the heart of the issue.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_08: As majority leader, he had to take account of a whole lot of different opinions with different people that to try to synthesize a point of view.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_08: But I must tell you, majority leader is the second best job in Washington.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_08: I said that to Ronald Reagan once.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_08: He said, No, Howard is the second best view in Washington.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_08: I said, Mr.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_08: President, I'm sure that's so in terms of historical standing, but look around.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_08: I got a nice office, I got a big staff, I got a car, I got access to an airplane, and I don't have Secret Service.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_08: And I still have a life, a bow.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_08: And he thought for a bit and says, Well, maybe so.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_04: They do say that the Senate majority uh uh office is the second best office in Washington, um second best view, as Howard Baker said.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_04: And uh these races for these leadership positions are fascinating with what it takes to win.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_04: And again, relationships and you'll hear the senators talk about the fact that a lot of times the the leader is not the guy that you see on TV all the time.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_04: Uh he's not a little bit of both, but but a lot of times it's the guy who plays the inside game better than the outside game that wins these leadership positions.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_04: And again, it's built a lot of times on the relationships you have uh you know, within your caucus.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_10: How do you run for leadership positions?
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_12: Oh yeah, it's a very you know you're talking about 50-55 people usually.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_12: And this this is a peer group, this is why a show horse can never win a race like that.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_12: This is in this is an insider.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_12: You try to think to yourself, when is the last time that an outsider Bob Byrd beat Ted Kennedy for the number two spot in the Democratic Party after Kennedy had been elected to the number two spot?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_12: But you you go through the leaders that were there.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_12: Every Derson was a showman.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_12: I'll give him I'll give him credit for that.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_12: But Mansfield Scott were not, uh Bob Bird certainly was not.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_12: Uh Howard Baker wasn't a showman.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_12: Uh Tom Dasher was not a showman.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_12: George George Mitchell was, in my mind, the toughest leader we had to face with because he was so good in debate.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_12: He he had uh, and most people in debate don't realize this, you ought to be very careful of granting your opponent a premise.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_12: If you say to it, you know, you're just gonna be sort of like can we start out this debate by at least agreeing that we will not allow the babies to be thrown in the gutter and trampled on by horses.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_12: You'd better not agree to that premise.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_12: Because you're dead.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_12: And he he was an expert at doing that.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_12: He he had the capacity in lay language to start a one, two, three, four, and you're not quite sure where you got trapped.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_12: But it's it's uh leaders inside.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_12: If you think you have a chance to be leader and you want to run for it, you do.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_12: I did a couple times.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_12: I got I finally got beat once.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_10: What do you pro uh what is it you have to offer uh to win to win over the uh the undecided?
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_10: It's it's almost personal.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_12: Yeah.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_12: Yeah.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_12: You you don't say if I'm elected, uh I'll guarantee that more of you get on meet the press.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_12: Uh you don't make first you can't generate that, but you don't say if I'm elected, I'll make sure the Republican conference uh makes the television studio available to all of you on a free basis when you know you haven't got the money to do that.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_12: It it isn't that kind of a race.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_11: Yeah.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_11: When I ran, they said, Well, this is impossible.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_11: You've only been here one term, and hell, there were five guys.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_11: Uh there was uh Gorton and Luger and Caston.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_11: And I came off in the first ballot, and then the second, and then the third, and then beat uh Slade about 33 to 17 or 18.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_11: He came up and he said, That's the first election I've ever lost.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_11: I said, Oh, first one I've ever won.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_11: He became a good Slade Dorton, boy.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_11: There was a machine.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_11: He had a machine gun mind, and he knew, and Dole used him a lot.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_11: Uh we both used him.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_11: You had such skillful people to use, Lugar, Prince, uh Prince of a man, ran for president, uh, never got anywhere.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_11: How sad that they couldn't see the quality of him.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_11: Well, Bill Bradley, uh, sad that you're not see the quality of the man because of, you know, he didn't, you know, didn't like to hold a fish up at the market at Seattle, you know, and just dismissive or said something funny.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_11: I mean, you haven't got a prayer in that stuff.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_04: Anyway, uh, because these senators serve a lot of them for a long time, they work with a lot of different leaders.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_04: And uh and I thought we would listen to all of, you know, a number of them uh talk about the different leaders that they served with, the personalities and and and I guess the changing times uh in the Senate because you know, an LBJ type, a Lyndon Johnson type, might not have been the one who could make uh the Senate run in the era of Bob Dole.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_04: So uh that's interesting to hear how these different leaders fit their time perfectly.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_10: You mentioned Lyndon Johnson.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_10: There is this legend about Johnson and his command of the Senate.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_10: Was it unique to Johnson?
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_10: Was it a function of his personality, or were there rules, were were there institutional weavers that he could pull that were not available to later majority leaders?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_09: I think Johnson was a power under himself.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_09: He um he was a very determined man.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_09: Uh he uh was skillful in knowing what the interests and the wishes of senators uh were.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_09: And he could be talking to you about some project in your state that you were interested in and slide from that into a vote that was coming up.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_09: He says, I sure hope you're gonna be with me on this uh vote on such and such.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_09: And it wasn't uh a direct bribe or anything like that, but uh there was this uh use of power that Johnson was very good at exercising.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_09: He he might have been the strongest majority leader in the history of the Senate.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_09: I haven't researched that back to the days of George Washington, of course, but uh I don't know of anybody else in the history of the Senate who was more skillful at putting together uh 51 votes for something he wanted than uh 51 Democrats.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_09: He did.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_09: He had uh control of both houses.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_09: Uh when I first came to the Congress, he had Sam Rayburn presiding over the uh House, who was probably as influential as Johnson.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_09: Um and Eisenhower was president during those first eight years that I uh served in the Senate.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_09: Um and they really ran the domestic side of American policy during the Eisenhower years.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_09: I don't know that there was any gentlemen's agreement that that's the way it would be, but uh uh Johnson and and Rayburn uh pretty much backed the president on anything that had to do with foreign policy or with national defense or national security.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_09: And Eisenhower more or less went along with most of what Rayburn and Johnson wanted to do on the domestic front, on health care, education, housing, transportation, agriculture, conservation, resource development.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_09: Those things uh were pretty much uh run by Johnson and Rayburn with the cooperation of the Democratic Senate and a certain number of Republicans who seemed to vote uh with us quite regularly.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_10: You know, it's interesting because I I I clearly I think Dole learned some things from watching how you operated.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_10: So I wonder, did you learn some things from watching your father-in-law?
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_08: Oh I'm sure I did.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_08: He was a great man, he really, really was.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_08: Uh and I'm sure I did, but I'd be hard put to uh you know the one thing I would say about Dirk Soder that I have a great admiration for him.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_08: That relationship, though, between father-in-law and son-in-law was potentially very delicate.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_08: And I believe, I don't know, I haven't really run the records, I believe I may be the only person, was the only person in the Senate that Dirks had never asked to vote one way or the other.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_08: And I think that was in recognition of the sensitivity of that relationship.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_08: But we discussed freely freely, and I sought his advice, which he gave freely.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_08: But he never tried to convince me.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_08: I don't think it was rebellion on my part, but it was an assertion of independence anyway.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_08: And it worked very well.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_10: Well, then how does this contrast with the legend of Lyndon Johnson in the 50s?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, well, it's kind of larger than my arm twister.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_08: Well, that's that's true, and all those things about Johnson are true, I'm sure, but it's interesting to me that Dirksen and Johnson were not only a one majority, one minority leader, but they were very close friends.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_08: And uh I think that facilitated the uh operation of the Congress, of the Senate, the fact that they would talk freely and and I'm sure agree and disagree freely, but uh you've seen several people do their job of majority leader, you'd you'd seen Howard Baker, and then you saw Bob Dole.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_10: How did how did they differ?
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_06: How do they differ?
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_06: I think that uh Howard Baker was uh was more of a leader that was uh very open with people and he knew where he stood.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_06: Um and Bob Dole was more of a loner as a leader, I believe.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_06: Uh I believe that Bob Dole was a better leader, but I think he did stuff more through staff than he did personally.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_06: Um and I believe Howard Baker would have worked more one uh senator to senator to get things done.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_06: You know, I may not be fair to Bob Dole by saying that because you're asking me to think back, you know, at least when he started, that that would be 20 years ago, you know.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_10: It's said to be one of the hardest jobs at in Washington.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_06: What makes it because you're herding cats.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_06: You know, I mean it's not like the United States, it's not like the House of Representatives, where it's run from the top down, it's run from the bottom up, you know.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I get Friss expresses it better than anybody else, you know, he compared it to a cemetery.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_06: Well, I I forget that comparison, but that's the best if I could think of that, it'd be the best way to demonstrate the Senate of what it what it is, you know.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_06: Um but it uh you know, it's probably Mansfield is probably the reason that the Senate is so hard to operate.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_06: Because Mansfield, uh I'm told, I didn't serve with him, but I'm told that he had the view that every senator is an individual senator, and uh every senator ought to have a chance to offer his amendment uh to say what he wants to say.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_06: You don't push him around.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_06: You know, just the opposite of Lyndon Johnson, as you read about Lyndon Johnson and the master of the Senate, you know.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_06: And Bob Dole and, you know, uh uh Howard Baker and and other people kind of inherited that new Senate.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_06: And that Senate's still that way today, you know.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, it's one of it's it's fascinating because I'm gonna ask you if you if you since in your time in Congress changes in terms of less party royalty, um that television and getting on television trumps a lot of other things, that a lot of time is spent fundraising, that it's a more individual body.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_06: I don't less collegial.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_06: I think the airplane's responsible for that.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_06: We go home every weekend.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_06: You read uh Master of the Senate, and you read about Mrs.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_06: Johnson and uh cooking for people on Sunday night, other senators coming over.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_06: Uh I don't know except for four or five times in 27 years I've been in the Senate.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_06: I've been in another senator's home.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_06: See?
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_06: I go, I have reservations to get out of here.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_06: The first airplane after the last vote on Thursday or Friday, and I come back just before, usually just before we vote on Monday or Tuesday, see.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_06: So, because I want to be home with my constituents.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_06: I've got two jobs, one in Washington legislating, and another job in Iowa making the process of representative government work.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_06: I got to get out there and and talk to Iowans.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_06: And uh and airplane makes that possible.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_06: But the extent to which we got an airplane and Chuck Grassley and every other senator goes home almost every weekend, there's less uh uh s social relationships developing.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_06: And I think it does make for a harsher climate.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_06: But I still think That it's not as partisan or it's not as impersonal as people believe, you know.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_06: Because you always hear about controversy on the television, you know.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_10: And what kind of leader was he was got?
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_12: Um nice guys, of course, he's leading in the minority all of the time.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_12: Of all the leaders I served one re with Republican and Democrat, the ones that had the first the problem of a of a leader, poor devil.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_12: You know, he's got a situation like this.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_12: One guy says, Don't vote till four, I'm coming back from Los Angeles, don't get in till four.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_12: Another guy says, You gotta vote four or three, I'm leaving for you know Seattle.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_12: And if you don't have the you don't get my vote, you know, he's they're just uh it's almost impossible for any of them to think of long-term strategy.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_12: They're just bedeviled.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_10: They're traffic cops with yes.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_12: And the and but the one who I thought had a greater perspective than all the ones I started with was Mike Mansfield.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_12: Part of it, he'd been a history teacher.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_12: I'm talking with him one time, he said when he was in the military, he says, I was he says, I was in China, and I'm thinking World War II he met in the twenties.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_12: Uh he'd been there.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_12: And he he had a demeanor and a longer view and and a patience that no other leader had, and and nor did he have it.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_12: I mean he was a nice guy.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_12: But of all the ones, who was the most natural leader of men, and I'll say men, there's no question Bob was was the in terms of a natural leader.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_12: Who would you follow into battle?
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_12: Uh I often said, if I'm ever stuck in a barroom fight and have to fight my way out, I want to fight out back to back with Bob Doell.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_10: And what were the qualities that contributed to that?
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_12: Either you've got it or you don't.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_12: Bob had it.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_10: Did he almost have it?
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_10: Or because there's a sense that he's evolved, in many ways, he's evolved, like hopefully all of us do.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_10: Um, I mean that you know, the the the the sheriff of the Senate was in many ways a very different figure from the well-regarded chairman of the finance committee, and and a decade later, you know, the would-be president.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_12: I mean, there was a sense that yes, but even among the freshmen that came in, if you were to say who would have been the natural leader among us, it would have been Bob.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_10: And who were some of the other members of that class?
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_12: Marlo Cook was one, Ed Gurney from Florida.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_12: Uh I'd have to go back myself.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_12: There's more than the four of us.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_12: But I honestly can't remember.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_10: But he was clearly very much a Nixon man.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_12: Oh, yeah.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_12: That was obviously the funeral.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_12: Nixon funeral.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_10: Lyndon Johnson was famous for the call.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_12: Lyndon Johnson could put it together.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_12: He had to get it, he had to do some compromising, and the liberals, led by Weymarse and Dick Newberg, and some others in the North, did not want the compromise he had.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_12: They did very desperately wanted to build a build a very high federal dam in a place called Hills Canyon in the snake route in Oregon, Idaho.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_12: The Southerners hated this concept of this dam.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_12: Somehow Lyndon talked the senators into voting for the dam in exchange for these liberals agreeing to a tempered-down civil rights bill.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_12: Lyndon knowing full well that the House would reject the dam when it got there.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_12: That yes.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_12: I don't and Carew's book is full of that.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_12: I never saw any leader that had that kind of a capacity.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_12: He just he just knew where the opportunity was.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_12: And he was operating in my mind in a much more difficult circumstance than leaders now.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_12: He was operating when committee chairmen were inviolate.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_12: When you just didn't cross committee chairmen, so you had to be extraordinarily devious and far-sighted and clever because you didn't have the powers that are now devolving upon the leadership.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_10: So that was it's a it's a unique to Lending Johnson's personality temperament.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_10: I mean, could it happen again?
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_12: I mean, if you if it can always happen again, especially if you're giving the leader more powers, I say.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_12: Early on, when Johnson becomes leader, and the Democrats have got increased their numbers tremendously in 58, as I recall, and he's trying to give the freshman each freshman a significant part on a significant committee.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_12: And if the Senate's following strict seniority, so he's got to talk to every senior senator and say, What about if you were to switch to this committee?
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_12: He's got to keep all these pieces moving because he doesn't have any authority to like the leader does today to put two people on the finance committee.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_12: So he's got to persuade, cajole, beg, berate, threaten to get all this done.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_12: Amazing.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_12: Yeah, I mean the first two I find interesting just getting up to, but he's the one on the Senate is incredible.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_12: I'm looking forward to the one on the presidency, but the one on the Senate was amazing.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_12: I mean, even at the at the very end, when he's vice president, so he's now in theory president of the Senate, and he attempts to get the senators to vote for him still as the leader while he's vice president.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_12: And powerful as he was, the Senate was saying, Lyndon, you're not here anymore.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_12: This is our club.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_04: And of the people that he served with.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_04: His oral history is so soft-spoken that you know I haven't been able to raise the volume on him, but um he uh his grasp of it is fascinating.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_04: And I can remember when he was in the Senate, he could make hacks policy, he was on the finance committee, fascinating, and he'd be out there talking about so you'd be memorizing, you realize I've been listening to the he was just a a really brave guy, and and uh his his situation would eventually be a fan.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_04: But um we have one more senator I was gonna let you listen to.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_04: His name is Than Cochran.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_04: He was a senator from Mississippi, another kind of self-spoken guy, though the volume is up a little bit high on his history, but um he was interesting because a lot of these guys serve on committees that you know are more in line with the interests of their states, and Cochrane did that because he served on agriculture, which was one a big one from Mississippi, but then he eventually ended up on appropriations and he served on the FC Committee and on several different committees, and so he got a grasp of everything the Senate does, and we're gonna hair more of his oral history as we uh go through this.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_04: But for this purpose of listening about the history of the and and the leaders he served with, he's just fascinated to hear him talk about the different leaders that he served with, and also the different presidents that he served with.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_04: So we're gonna finish this out with Van Congress talking about all the Senate leaders that he dealt with, and all the presidents that he dealt with, and you get a just a a real window into all of them from a man who is just a very insightful senator, and he always was.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_04: He was always a very quiet, soft-spoken guy, not a lot of theater, which made his final race um almost a mystery to me because he got targeted by some of the far right, and they did as much anything they could do to uh to topple him.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_04: And I never understood that because he was such a uh a contributor to the debate, and he did it quietly without all this drama and show voting that goes on nowadays.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_04: But anyway, here's Thad Cochran talking about the leaders and the presidents that he worked with.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um in a few words, um I I I want to go through uh a number of the leaders of the Republican Party during your tenure.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_03: What what words would come to mind to describe uh Howard Baker?
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well, he was a genuinely warm and uh caring kind of uh person.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_02: He was easy to be with, always seemed to be accessible.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_02: He never felt threatened in any way by Howard Baker.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he was very smart and very diligent in terms of uh the seriousness that he brought to uh his responsibilities.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh when I was first elected to the Senate, he was the he was the Republican leader, and uh we became the majority party uh when he was a Republican leader, and he did a wonderful job as leader.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_02: He was a good example for the rest of us in how he handled himself on the floor of the Senate speaking always uh in an articulate way.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_02: I don't ever recall his really losing his temper or showing that he was upset, uh, out of control in any way at all.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_02: He respected the leaders on the other side.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_02: He was good friends with most senators.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he uh he was someone I was very fond of and still am.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_02: Bob Dole brought a lot of the same uh attributes to the leadership uh responsibilities that he had as well.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_02: They were a good bit alike, I thought.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_03: Did you see times when you thought perhaps uh Bob Dole was really modeling himself in certain instances on uh Howard Baker or not?
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_02: No, I think he was just he was being himself uh all the time.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean he was a unique personality, very strong-willed, and he had a a lot of energy.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_02: He he could be out on the floor of the Senate handling a bill, managing a bill, and be there for hours and hours, and uh not seem to get tired or or uh, as they say down south, frazzled in any way, keeping his composure, being courteous to everybody, but also being a strong leader and uh an influence, an articulate, uh persuasive influence in the Senate.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_02: I think probably um Bob Doe could have been the best, you know, strategist, um, tactician that served in the Senate while I've been here.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_03: What about Robert Byrd?
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_02: Robert Byrd is an unusual person, and he has the already over all of us and uh a determination to serve forever.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh um that may not happen, but uh some will be surprised.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um he is uh a person that's so devoted to the Senate as an institution and and uh has a reverence and a feeling of respect, fondness uh uh for it that is unequaled.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_02: He's devoted uh to his job, to his duties as a senator, and uh enjoys talking on the floor of the Senate.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh maybe too much sometimes, but it's uh out of a sense of strong conviction that what he's doing is important, and uh the country is uh is worth devoting his life and energies to uh preserving and improving.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_02: So I have uh an enormous amount of personal respect and appreciation for Robert Berg.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I remember my wife and I traveled with him and his wife on a on a long trip uh to Turkey one time, and we we uh we spent about 10 days, I think, in Turkey.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_02: Or maybe the trip lasted 10 days.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_02: And uh he was really adored in that in Turkey.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_02: He had made some speeches and he had led an effort to uh support Turkey's interests on some foreign relations matter where they were in conflict with uh others in that region.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_02: And uh he was treated as a sort of a national hero.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_02: People would recognize him on the streets as ordinary people, and uh we would want to touch him or speak to him.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_02: It was an interesting thing to observe.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_03: How as majority leader, uh, how did he work with those of you on the other side of the island?
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well, he always worked well with me personally.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_02: I've never had a problem with him.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, but he could be demanding and uh um he wanted to win, he wanted to have his way, but usually his way was to get something done, whatever the issue was to get it done.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_02: And he could be as determined and more determined than any senator we have to accomplish his goals and be prepared to stay there as long as he needed to stay there and to get up to get them done.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so he's a very effective senator.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_03: George Mitchell.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_02: A very bright and hard-working fellow, not much sense of humor uh when the challenges got tough.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_02: He could be stern, determined, but he was successful too.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_02: We've been very lucky uh to have talented, true patriots uh who were willing to step forward and assume responsibilities of leadership during the time I've been in the Senate.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um and George Mitchell is one of the best.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not going beyond that because of treating owned considered the whole career.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um, which of those leaders would you most want to be serving under a damn?
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I didn't serve under any of them.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_02: We are a group of equals, and uh that's another part of the art of being a leader in the Senate is understanding that.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, understanding that everyone has the right to speak as long as they have the floor on any subject they want to talk about, and they can do it as long as they can stand there and talk, and the 60 senators vote to shut off debate.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not usual that you can get 60 senators to vote to shut off debate if another senator wants to talk.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_02: And they if they abuse the privilege, then culture can be invoked and is invoked.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_02: But all of these people have uh have been truly uh impressive, and um, and I I I respected them all enormously.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't want to have to choose one over the other.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_03: Mentioning Nixon, I think maybe this is where we ought to uh conclude today, but um, did you spend any time with him?
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_03: What was he like?
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh one of the brightest, uh, and with a command of foreign relations and international um activity, people, personalities, district, anybody you would want to meet.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_02: And even when he he left Washington and he was he would just come back for occasional visits, Bob Dole actually organized a meeting where he he invited several senators to come in and just have a sort of around the room.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_02: We were sitting in chairs like this, and President Nixon would be there, eight of us maybe, sitting in a room, and he was just talking about his thoughts on the current foreign policy challenges facing the country, and his observations.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it was a it was like a tutorial, you know, in at a major university with the authority uh of the country.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's the kind of respect that he absolutely could could generate in his uh command of the issues and understanding of people and uh the effects of events on the future of our country.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um it was a fascinating experience.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_02: But he continued to be very active in keeping up with things that were going on and and giving of himself in situations like that.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_03: Did you have any similar experiences with Ronald Reagan?
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_02: He was a wonderful personality and a genuinely woman-friendly person.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_02: I never had the kind of respect for Ronald Reagan, I have to admit, uh, in terms of his intelligence and perceptions as I did of uh Richard Nixon.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_02: But Ronald Reagan could mesmerize a group, could convince a group of congressmen to support him and stick with him on this issue or that issue.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um and he had good, solid support from staff members who were committed to ensuring that he was a successful president.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_02: And he surrounded himself with talented people who uh really made it, made it work, made it work out, and helped him uh write the things that he said.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_02: But he could say them so well, and he was such a genuinely good person and honest person, uh, with no real meanness or evil about him at all, that the combination of personality and presentation and genuineness of spirit and everything uh made him a wonderful leader.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_02: So it was it was an interesting comparison and contrast between Nixon and Reagan in that regard.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_03: Just a few words on George Bush, the first.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I liked him so much.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_02: He was just, he's the kind of guy you want to be with, whoever you are and whatever you're doing.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_02: He's he's easy, uncomplicated, totally uh warm, good natured, good humored.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_02: He's uh he he loved so many different things.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_02: He loved to play tennis, he loved to fish, he loved to uh be outside doing something.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_02: He was he had a lot of energy and a lot of warmth, uh, and a genuinely friendly person.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um I don't know of anybody, my wife and I enjoyed being red any more than George Herbert and Walker Bush before he was president, after he was president, while he was president, and Barbara just was the icing on the cake.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_02: She was just uh totally charming.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember um we were going through a receiving line the night and line asked my wife and I said, What am I supposed to call Barbara?
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_02: And she had over, we were close enough, I had she heard me.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_02: And she said, Well, Barbara, of course, is what she called me.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then she turned to my wife and said, Hi, love.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_02: And they said she said, Hi, love.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_02: She was just such a warm and personable and uh easy-to-be with person, put everybody at ease.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_03: And what about Bill Clinton?
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Bill Clinton is a neighbor.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he was an Arkansas person.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I sort of watched him, you know, not at too close a range because I'd never really met him, except we were working on the, there was a Delta Commission involved in Arkansas, Mississippi, um, Tennessee, I think, was involved.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_02: And we were we were trying to put together some regional activities and programs.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I was up here in Congress in the Senate, and he was governor down there.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_02: And we our paths would cross from time to time.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_02: And he was always in good humor, you know, and he's easy to be with to, like a lot of politician types, but um, he's real smart and work worked real hard all the time.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_02: But you never knew exactly what he was up to, you know.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not saying that in a critical way, but you just didn't know exactly what was going on with the other.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh sometimes he'd say one thing and you know, and then do something else.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but I'm not saying he was dishonest.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_02: He just um he just had a lot of different aspects to his personality.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_02: It made him a little more complicated, I think, and uh, than others.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank you.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_03: Very, very interesting here.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's been a pleasure.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_03: Good.