Robert S. Strauss: In His Own Words

Interview: Robert Strauss Presidential Medal of Freedom May 2, 2003 Washington, D.C. Back to Robert Strauss Interview What did your family do when you were growing up? Were there  politicians in your family? Robert Strauss: No, no, no. I grew up in two little towns in West Texas. One was called Hamlin, Texas and the other was called Stamford, Texas. My father was an impoverished small merchant in a community of 2,000 to 3,000 people, in the Depression. What did he sell? Robert Strauss: He had sort of a general store. He had a piano to sell, or he had khaki pants to sell. He had ladies shoes or whatever you wanted -- a general mercantile store. And your mother? Robert Strauss: She worked in the store with him. She was the business person of the family. My father was at heart a musician, but he didn't have an opportunity to pursue it, or he wasn't good enough. My mother was born in Texas, in Hempstead, Texas. My father was a German immigrant who came to this country when he was about 20 years old. My father was selling pianos then, and my mother was helping her father in his little store in a town called Lockhart, Texas, where I was born. My parents were married, and my father was traveling, trying to sell pianos out of the San Antonio area in South Texas. When I was about a year old, my grandfather backed my father and mother so they could open a little store, and they traveled around and decided to open one in West Texas, instead of South Texas where I was born. Lockhart is over near Austin, Texas. The little towns I lived in, Hamlin, Texas and Stamford, Texas, were near Abilene, which is Northwest Texas. We moved there when I was about a year old. Was it a big family? Robert Strauss: No. Then, it was just me. I was the only child. My brother Ted is seven years younger. We lived in Hamlin for a number of years and then moved 20 miles over to Stamford, Texas. I guess Stamford, Texas had close to 3,000 people, and Hamlin had about 1,500 people, so they left Hamlin and moved to the city of 3,000. What kind of school did you go to? Robert Strauss: I went to the only school they had in town,  which was a public school, and I guess I got a pretty good education. I got all I wanted. Were you a good student? Robert Strauss: Terrible. I don't think I was stupid. I never really studied much. I never had a great interest. As a matter of fact, I never had intellectual interests as I was growing up, and I was not a good student going through school and through law school. I was always in the bottom half of the class instead of one of the stars. I used to envy people who had intellectual interests that I  didn't have and who had intellectual competence or academic  competence in areas I didn't have. It wasn't until I was much  older, in my twenties -- after I got my law degree and was  even practicing law -- that I realized that while most of the  people that I went through school with could write a better  legal brief than I could write, or could draw better documents  than I would prepare, but the strange thing was the clients  came to me instead of them. I learned along the way that I had  judgment, and that I had a certain character and integrity that  attracted people. I had a warm personality. I liked people,  they liked me. I learned then that instead of sitting around,  envying people who had strengths I didn't have, that I ought  to play to my own strengths and quit being paranoid about  these other people. I used to resent the fact that they could  do those things. Later, I came to realize that they had their  strengths, which were certainly valuable and of great value  to them, but I had strengths that seemed to attract people  who not only wanted a lawyer who understood the law, but  they wanted someone who had judgment, and who they  could trust and who they felt had integrity. Those were my  strengths, and I would play to them. So I quit worrying about  others and played to my own strengths and didn't worry  about my weaknesses. I have had continued success once I came to grips with that, and was at peace with my   strengths and not disturbed by my weaknesses. The character that you refer to, and your ability to inspire trust, has taken you into the confidence of more than one  president. Where do you suppose that talent for people  came from? Robert Strauss: I have said many times to my children and grandchildren that my father was a poor businessman and never accumulated any amount of money whatsoever, but he left my brother and me great strength, and one of the great strengths was our ability to like people, and the personality that attracted people and attracted their confidence. I think that has had everything to do with my success in politics and other things. Whenever I have worked with people in the political game, I have been successful, and it isn't because I was the smartest politician around, but I was certainly one of the most reliable ones. You said you were a terrible student, but did you like to read? Robert Strauss: Oh yes, I loved to read, but I didn't read very  many worthwhile things. People now are too young to  remember Tom Swift, or to remember Tom Sawyer and  Huckleberry Finn. Those are the kinds of things that I read  growing up. I couldn't get enough of them, and I can remember  the marvelous stories that were in The Saturday Evening Post.  I couldn't wait for it to come every week, so we could read  the fiction story that was in there or the novel that was in  there. Sometimes it was continued from week to week, other   times it was in one issue. So I read, and I read newspapers.  When I was 12, 13, 14 years old, I read the paper regularly.  Today, I guess I read four papers a day, maybe five or six.  That comes from a habit of my early youth of enjoying   reading current stories. I never was as interested in history  as many of my friends, but I was always more interested in  the current than they were. So you can have chocolate or  vanilla; I chose one flavor. What newspapers do you read today? Robert Strauss: I read The Washington Post to begin with, and then I read The New York Times, and then I read The  Wall Street Journal, and then I read The Dallas Morning  News, because I want to know what's happening in my home state of Texas. About two or three times a week, I read the Los Angeles Times, because I like to keep in touch with what's going on on the West Coast, and know what the editorials are dealing with there, as well as on the East Coast where I now live. So I cover the waterfront. I read the Financial Times sporadically, once or twice a week. When you've read The New York Times and The  Washington Post, it doesn't take long to read these other papers; you go through them pretty fast. When you were a student, were there any teachers  that helped or inspired you? Robert Strauss: No, I don't think so. I liked most of my  teachers, and most of them liked me. I don't think any of them particularly inspired me. I don't think I was inspired. What about other people, growing up? Robert Strauss: My mother was the major inspiration  in my life, not my father. I got along with him well, but  he was not very strong. My mother was strong and kind,   and I guess we never had a cross word. She used to  worry that I was studying too much, and my father  used to say, "Good God Almighty! How can you say  he's studying too much? He never does anything but  run around, and he makes terrible grades, and you  tell him not to study so much." And her answer  would be, "Well, you know, if he starts worrying  about his grades, he'll get an ulcer, and I don't want  him to lose his health. He's got such a long life ahead  of him, and he's going into politics and diplomacy."  So she had already begun to carve out -- that's the  inspiration I had. Instead of a teacher, it was my mother. So she saw a talent for politics when you were quite young. Robert Strauss: Very early. I came from a Jewish family, and my parents lived,  as I said, in West Texas, and I had a grandmother who  lived in Forth Worth, and on one of the high holidays  in the fall, the family would all come to Fort Worth,  and we would spend a day or so with my grandmother,  who came from Germany and who was very German --  in fact, we called her grossmama not "grandmother."  But when they would gather around there, my mother  would always say, "My son Bobby is going to be a   diplomat, and he's going into politics, and he'll be the  first Jewish Governor of the State of Texas." I can  remember being 14 years old, 12, 13 years old maybe,  in that age, and walking into the room, and one of my  uncles would say, "Well, here comes the Governor,"  and they would all laugh, and I could have killed the  sonofabitches. But my mother ignored them totally.  She would just smile. And she wasn't far wrong;  I had a successful political career. Did she live to see your career blossom? Robert Strauss: Not near enough, no. My father outlived her.  That's one of my great regrets, that they didn't live to see me become Chairman of the Democratic Party, because I was a very successful chairman. She would have liked the publicity I had for rebuilding the Democratic Party after  McGovern was defeated so badly. We pulled the party together and elected a president. They didn't see any of that. That's a shame. You had heard your mother talk  about your political talents. Did you feel attracted  to politics as soon as you did get involved? Robert Strauss: Oh, I always knew that I liked politics very much. In my second year at the University of Texas, I worked for a fellow who was running for office. Who was that? Robert Strauss: A fellow named Travis B. Dean  was running for the world's worst job, that's being a  member of the Texas legislature in the '30s. It was not  a very distinguished group. But he had about $120 a  month in patronage, and he told me he would give me  half of it if he got elected, which would be $60 a month.  It was a fortune! And he got elected to the legislature,  so he had $120 to pass around, and I thought I was  going to get 60 of it, but I ended up with a third of the  patronage, with $40 of it a month, but that was a lot  of money, and I didn't have to do really any work.  It was sort of a scam, his patronage to hand out,  and I was happy to participate in it. So that $40 a  month came in handy. I had that job for two or three  years: Committee Clerk in the Texas legislature. You  won't see it in my résumés very often, because I'm not  quite as proud of that. Maybe I ought to be. How did you first meet Lyndon Johnson? Robert Strauss: When I was in the University of Texas  in 1937, Lyndon Johnson ran for Congress in the seat  of a man named Buchanan, Congressman Buchanan,  who died in office, and they had a special election.  Roosevelt was president. And I idolized Roosevelt,  who I had never met, but I read every word about  him, and he captured my imagination. Things were  so deplorable, and the Depression was so serious and   severe that he came along, and he was about the only  light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, to use a cliché.  And he captured my imagination, and when Johnson  ran for Congress, he had a pretty simple platform:  "I'm for Franklin Roosevelt. Whatever he's for, I'm  for." There were a bunch of people in that race, and  he was not supposed to have too much chance to win  it; he was an underdog. But he just ran and ran and ran  on Roosevelt and got elected. I was attracted to his  campaign then, and I was in the University of Texas   undergraduate school -- as a matter of fact, I volunteered  to help him one day -- they asked me if I'd take some  circulars over to Lockhart from Austin, Texas, about  30 or 40 miles. I drove over to Lockhart, which is the  little town I had been born in, and handed out circulars,  and those circulars said: "Come hear Lyndon Baines  Johnson speak on behalf of his candidacy for Congress,"  so-and-so and so forth, "Four o'clock p.m., Lockhart  Square." And that was my first involvement with Lyndon  Johnson. After you worked for LBJ's campaign, did you ever  turn back? Did you ever think that you would want to get  out of politics? Robert Strauss: No, no. I liked it, and I was good at it, and I had  friends involved. I was in a law school class that had a number of successful  politicians in it, one of whom was John Connally, who became  Governor of Texas and was a very able fellow and one of the  most attractive men I've ever known in public life. He and I  developed a friendship -- not a close friendship then -- a  casual friendship. He was a year or two older than me.  He came from South Texas, a poor boy from there; I came  from West Texas, a poor boy from there. But we kind of hit  it off, and we never lost that friendship until the day he died.  He was estranged from the Democratic Party. He quit it to  switch to the Republican Party. The only argument we ever  had was over that, and I thought it was a mistake and still do. Growing up as a Jew in a small town in Texas, did you   experience anti-Semitism? Robert Strauss: No, I don't think so, and I probably wouldn't have recognized it. When you're the only Jewish family in a little town, there's  no reason for people to be anti-Semitic. There weren't  enough of us, we didn't threaten anyone. My mother, again,  had absolutely convinced me and my brother Ted that we were  God's chosen people. I was sort of embarrassed by the fact  that I was chosen by God and couldn't tell anybody about it. It was too embarrassing. But I used to walk around and feel  kind of sorry for those poor bastards that weren't chosen by  God as I was. How she got that done... We never had any  religious training. We never belonged to a temple or a  synagogue. We had absolutely no religious training. I don't suppose there was a synagogue if you were the  only Jewish family in town. Robert Strauss: No, there wasn't. There wasn't one within 30 miles. I think eventually, they got a little one in Abilene, which is 40 miles  away, but we didn't have anything to do with it. We would go over to Forth Worth, on the high holidays, and then I would go to one service occasionally with my mother. My father didn't even go to that. My mother felt her Judaism very, very much and wanted us to feel it, but she didn't worry about the fact that we didn't have it. I guess she thought we would acquire it. She gave me a feel for it, and it stood me in good stead. I think I had adequate balance. I ended up being President of the Reform Congregation -- one of the largest in the country -- in Dallas, Texas. I think it would have shocked a lot of people I met  along the way growing up that I ended up head of a congregation. That wasn't because I contributed much to religious study or Judaism. They needed someone as head of the congregation who people had confidence in, and who had some leadership qualities. For what it was worth, that's what I did. I'm not sure  they made a good choice, but I spent a year or two as president of that congregation. I didn't go to the services, I might add, which was sort of embarrassing with the rabbi. How did you come to join the FBI? Robert Strauss: I got out of law school, and there was a  looming world war, and people were looking for things  to do that were better than being a private in the army,   and I was in that group. A fellow named Maurice Acers,  who was an important executive at the FBI, was  recruiting agents just about the time I was graduating   from law school. He came to Austin and said he was  going to recommend I think it was two people out of  our class, and I guess about a third of us or maybe more   went in for interviews, and lo and behold, even though  my grades were poor, I was the one he selected. And I  don't know why, it was not on my grades. I do know why.  It's because in the interview, I did better than I guess most  of the others. And I don't know why that happened, except  those same strengths I was talking about came into play.  I can still remember the question he asked me: "What one  thing would be most significant, do you think, of  importance to you in your life as you move through life?"  And I remember thinking a second and saying, "I think  I'd like to feel when I get old..." -- and I was thinking it   would be maybe 60, 65 years old -- "...that I had made  some kind of difference in a positive way in my life."  And he said, "On what scale?" I said, "I don't think  scale makes any difference. I'd like to think I contributed  in a positive way to influencing somebody or influencing  some idea." And I said, "I never thought of that before,  so this answer may sound foolish," and he said, "On the   contrary, it sounds very sensible." And he dropped it,  and we went on, and later on when I was talking to  him, he said, "Bob, I'll tell you exactly why. You   answered this question the way you did, and it impressed me." So again, that had nothing to do with my intellectual competence or incompetence as the case might be, but a good deal to do with my  judgment and my ability to relate to situations and people. You just have to figure out what your strengths are and not worry about your weaknesses, and play to them and utilize them, and I have done that. You were in Dallas on the day President Kennedy was   killed, and you were very close to John Connally, who  was also wounded that day. Could you tell us about that  day? Did you participate in the President's trip to Texas? Robert Strauss: To back up a little, John Connally called me from Washington. He called me before he went up, and he said, "Kennedy wants to see me, Bob." When Kennedy called him to Washington, Johnson was Vice President, and Kennedy didn't even tell Johnson that he had called John Connally up to have him plan a trip to Texas. Connally didn't want the President to come to Texas, because he was coming down to do the one thing we needed to do. I was in charge of Connally's fundraising. The Texas people knew that I raised money for him. Connally called from up there before he went back home and said, "Bob, Kennedy is coming to Texas, and he's going to raise money here." Did Connally think it was going to compete with his   fundraising? Robert Strauss: Connally knew they were coming to raise  money. And he didn't want to compete with the President? Robert Strauss: Exactly. Furthermore, John Connally wasn't  anxious to have Kennedy in the state. He wasn't that popular. Texas was a difficult place, and Connally was in a different mode. He was Johnson's man, not Kennedy's man. The whole thing was a montage of conflicting interests. When we planned the trip, Connally said, "Valenti and Singleton and Albert Thomas," who was a congressman, "will handle the various things in Houston, and you take care of Dallas and get two or three other people involved." He mentioned Cassidy.  So we planned in Dallas a luncheon, this is what the Kennedy people wanted. Bobby Kennedy sent down a woman named Elizabeth Forsling -- I'll never forget her name -- who was a very nice lady, and I liked her very much. Still living, I think, in New York. She was representing Bobby Kennedy and the White House in Dallas, and I was representing the Governor's interest in Dallas,  so she and I had a good deal to do with the planning of that event.  If I live to be 110, I'll not forget that when we were  planning that trip, two Secret Service fellows were talking to the head of the Chamber of Commerce -- I think it was a fellow named Bob Cullum -- and he said to the two of us, "Now what about the luncheon? What kind of hall would you pick  to have it in?" And he was going over the various sites and planning where the audience would sit, and where the head table would be, and whether the President would be above or below, and he was explaining to us, "He needs to be above the crowd." And he asked some question about the planning of that event, where it should be, and I said, " Fellow, I'll tell you, I know a lot of things, I think, but one thing I don't know a damn thing about is presidential security. That, you fellows have to plan." Cullum may have said it first, but together we said that. He and I discussed it later. Thank goodness we both said that we don't know anything about presidential security. But that was the trip, of course, where the President lost his life. I was at the luncheon, waiting for that group to arrive. I was not involved in the Chamber of Commerce or the  Citizens' Council, which is a group of establishment people.  I was never much of an establishment fellow in Dallas.  That's the reason I got into national politics, because I  had political interests, but my political interests were I  wanted to be on the City Council representing the business  establishment. I didn't want to be a radical on the outside.  The trouble is they didn't want me. They didn't need young,  up-and-coming Jewish lawyers getting into any leadership role  there. And they were pretty effective; I didn't. When Connally considered running for Governor, I was one of  the two people who came to Washington and talked to the fact that we could elect him. I knew that he wanted to be Governor. He had talked to me about trying to be Senator earlier. But along with others, I helped talk John into doing something he was born to do anyway, be in elective office, and that's where I got going out of Dallas. So when we elected him Governor, I came in over the top of the Dallas establishment instead of trying to go through them. I knew I couldn't do that. After John Connally got elected Governor, people were crazy about him. He was so attractive, and he had not gone so far to the right then. He was right in the middle, and I thought it would elect him president. I still think it could have if he had stayed a Democrat. I vividly remember that he asked me when he got elected  Governor -- well, the Governor has no power, but he has  appointments, he can appoint you to different things -- and  he asked me what I wanted, and I said, "Well, I don't want   anything, Governor. I know you don't want to appoint me  to the Board of Regents because you have been speaking  on the fact that we've got to get rid of cronyism on that  board, and I couldn't agree with you more. I think you  ought to appoint some people not like me who would  be considered your voice there. I share your view, and  that's the only thing I would want. I love the University  of Texas, and I'd like to be a Regent, but this would be  the wrong time," and he wouldn't do it if I had wanted it. And... I said, "There is one thing I want," and he said, "What's  that?" I said, "Well, when you start appointing those judges  and filling these commissions and when people out of the  Dallas establishment come to call on you, just listen to them   and say, 'Well, I've got your suggestions now, and I'm  certainly going to consider them, and I'll discuss it with  Bob Strauss the first chance I get, and you'll hear from  him or me." And he started laughing, and he said, "Are  you kidding?" And I said, "That's all I want, John. Just  say, 'Well, I want to discuss it with Strauss.'" Of course,  nothing could have pleased me more, and I was so vain,  anyway, about it and annoyed with them for ten years  or more of what I thought was neglect or abuse or  whatever you'd call it. They really were nice people,  they just didn't care for me. It wasn't mutual. I was  ready to join the crowd, but the crowd didn't want  me, to be very blunt about it. But Connally did that  a couple times, and that's all I needed, and I liked it.  It made the whole thing worthwhile. How did you hear the news that the President and  Governor Connally had been shot? Were you at the  hall waiting for the Chamber of Commerce crowd? Robert Strauss: Yes. A fellow with the highway patrol came  up. I was sitting with Cliff Cassidy, who was a young businessman there who was deeply involved with Connally and me. I had introduced Connally to Cassidy, and Connally had appointed him head of the Department of Public Safety. The patrolman came up and said to the two of us, "There  has been an accident. There has been a shooting, and we  think the President has been hit, and we don't know how  serious, and we think Governor Connally may have been hit."  And I said, or he said, "Let's go to the hospital," and we left  that lunch. Helen was there, and I left her and went to the  hospital, and when I got there, Nellie Connally was standing  in the hallway, and as I came in, a fellow named Cliff  Carter, who was on Johnson's staff, came rushing up to  me and said, "Bob, Kennedy's dead. He's dead." He just  said, "I can't believe it. He's dead." And he said,   "Johnson's president. I can't believe the power..."  The whole thing was -- we were in shock. And he said, "They just rushed Johnson to the airport." And I said, "Where is Mrs. Kennedy?" and he said, "She and Nellie Connally are at such-and-such a place." When I rushed there, Nellie was standing outside of the  operating room, leaning against the wall. She had been in a private room, and had just stepped out, and she was sobbing kind of quietly, so I talked with her. I then called Helen, who had gotten home by then, or  shortly thereafter, and I said, "Honey, this is so incredible."  I said, "There are mobs of these people, friends of ours  and people connected with Kennedy or Johnson, who are  wandering around in a daze, just like I am," and I said,  "I think I'll just tell them to come to our house tonight.  Most of them don't even have rooms. They hadn't planned  on staying here, some of them." And she said, "Good."  And I said, "Why don't you get 50 or 60 steaks" -- we  had an inside grill -- "get about 50 or 60 small strips.  And be sure you have a lot of booze, we're going to  need it." And I guess we had an Irish wake in a Jewish  home that night, because a lot of the press came by, and  a lot of Johnson's and some of Kennedy's friends came  by, and our friends, people from around the state who  were in town and heard about it word-of-mouth. I told  people, "Just tell everybody our house will be open."  And we must have had 100 people coming and going,  maybe 150, that night, and it was a tremendous, a  terribly tremendous night. How did Lyndon Johnson handle this shocking development? Robert Strauss: He called my law partner, Irving Goldberg,  who was very close to Johnson and Mrs. Johnson. As a matter of fact, I think he was their lawyer, and Irving had been on his staff for a while. Johnson called him from the plane, and he asked Irv, "What do I do about being sworn in? Should I do  it here or there or wait until I get to Washington?" And Irv was wise enough to say, "You don't need to be sworn in. You are president, but you ought to be sworn in in a very public way, where the world will see you, see the power changing, because they need to know there is continuity here." And Johnson said, "I agree. Who should do it?" And Irv said, "I'll get Barefoot." Barefoot Sanders had an Indian name, but he had also just been appointed U.S. Attorney by  Johnson, "He'll locate Judge Sarah Hughes," who was also a Johnson appointee. Luckily, they found the right people, and  that's how that all happened. Johnson said to him, "You get out here for this swearing in," but when he got to the airport they said, "Oh, you can't go in there." Irv was too shy, and he didn't throw his weight around or say, "Call the plane, you'll  find out." So he just stayed out and went on back home. That's the story. A day I'll never forget. That also changed the dimension of my career to some extent.  My career has been a good one. It hasn't been any meteoric rise to the top, but it has been a constant rise, one I am proud of and pleased about and found it terribly rewarding every day. I have been blessed with the ability to have relationships on both sides of the aisle. I have been blessed to hold important  responsibilities for both parties. I have been blessed with a family that is very supportive, and a wife who was interested in music and art until she had the bad break of running into me, and found out she had better get interested in politics and public life because that was my interest. So we found our lives going in that direction, and she has been very, very good at it and with me everywhere, as has Vera Murray. She has been with me 32 or 33 years. My secretary here has been with me 25 years, and the one in Dallas, Marie Phelps, has been with me 35 years, maybe more. I never leave people, and they never  leave me. I don't try to grade up to get better. My people are good, and they get better, and they don't grade up and leave me to get something better. So it's a functional group of people, just as my family is functional. Tell us more about Lyndon Johnson. He had a famous  temper, I understand. Robert Strauss: Yes, he had a hell of a temper, but he also had the ability to be very thoughtful and very nice. Lyndon Johnson never  saw me as a close advisor. If Lyndon Johnson had ten or 12  people to an important meeting to help him make a political decision, I would not have been in that group of 10 or 12. Had he had 25 people in, I would have made that cut probably. I was never closer than that to Lyndon Johnson, but people always assumed I was. I was a fellow who was active in politics, from Texas, and known  to be a Johnson man. The truth of the matter is, I was close to John  Connally, who was our Governor, and he was Johnson's man. He had worked for him and with him, and Johnson relied on him for everything. So if I was going to reach Johnson, the best way to do it would be to have Connally reach him for me. I didn't have to reach him for anything, but that was my relationship. Johnson asked me on one occasion when I was at the White  House. He had me up to his residence in the White House,  called my wife and I up there, called us to town. What had  happened was they called and said, "The President wants  to see you tomorrow morning in his bedroom at 7:30," and  I said, "Well, I can't go then. It's Helen's 50th birthday  tomorrow. I'll come the next day." And he said fine and  said, "I'll tell the boss." So he came back on the phone  about five minutes later and said, "The boss says he wants  to see you tomorrow morning around 7:30 in his bedroom,  and bring Helen with you. And he said to tell you to have  her bring an evening dress she can wear in the evening,  and you bring a tux, because..." this fellow said, "...there  are things going on up here. There's a lot of activity, and  apparently the President may include you and Helen in it."   And I said fine, so we trooped up here, and when I got up  there, Lyndon Johnson talked to me about what was going  wrong with the Hubert Humphrey campaign in Texas and  what I ought to do about it. Sort of "or else!" Lyndon  Johnson intimidated me like no one ever had before him and  no one since. I found him the most intimidating human being  I had ever been around. He had my number, and he knew  it and I knew it, so that's a bad combination. But I was  devoted to him, with all his warts, just like everyone who  he touched was. I think he was the most powerful man  in whose company I have been. Everyone had that same   impression. He would overpower you with his personality  and his ability. He was not always right, but he was always effective. I don't know if you've read any of the Robert Caro books, but he was  an amazing human being, and they tell a lot about him. When I was up  there in his bedroom, as we were finishing our talk about the Humphrey  campaign, he said to me, "Bob, what do you think about my Asia policy?" He was talking about Vietnam. That was the height of the war, which ran him out of office, you will recall. When did this happen? Robert Strauss: It was October 8th, 1968. I remember it so well, because Helen's 50th birthday was the 9th. I told him everything I thought he wanted to hear, not one  word of which did I really believe, and I felt so dirty when I  got through, I swore I'd never do anything like that again  if the Lord would ever forgive me. If the President was ever  dumb enough to ask my advice, I'd do better. What do you think prompted you to tell him what he wanted  to hear about Vietnam? Robert Strauss: I think I was intimidated, and I didn't tell him  what he found unappealing. After I left his bedroom and was  telling Helen about it -- my wife, who I've been married to  over 60 years, we're very close, we are inseparable -- I said  to her an hour after I left the bedroom, I felt better that  I didn't do any -- I realized I didn't do any harm, because  Lyndon Johnson didn't really give a damn about what I  thought. He asked me that question because he pretty well  knew I'd tell him what he wanted to hear, I think. So I don't  think I ever had any influence on a decision of Lyndon  Johnson's in my life. I don't kid myself about that. But that's  part of maturing and part of learning and part of growing  up. I have always been sort of ashamed of that, but I feel  better when I tell it publicly, and I have no hesitancy in  doing so, because after that, a number of presidents have  sought my advice. Some of the advice is good and some of  it not so good, and some they took and some they didn't  take, but I'm just vain enough -- and I'm honest enough  to admit my vanity -- that I like the idea that people say  Bob Strauss is a wise man or a fellow who counsels  presidents. Well, of course, both of those are overstated,  but I don't spend any time correcting people. I don't object to the impression, and I like the fact that my children and grandchildren read it and hear it, and to a substantial  extent, believe it. I have been blessed with a very functional family. Too many families are dysfunctional today. I know I've done something right in my life and that Helen has, because we have a reasonably good-size family, and it's the most functional damn family in the world, to stray from the subject. How many children? Robert Strauss: Three children and seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. When my grandchildren got to be teenagers and older, and they would come by for a beer with me when I was trying to rest at night, I used to say, "Don't you have any home? Doesn't anybody ever ask you for a date?  Why don't you quit hanging around here?" And they would laugh, and I would laugh. It's a great relationship. Did any of them go into politics? Robert Strauss: No, no. Nobody in my family went into politics, although I have a grandson who is called Rob Strauss, and I think he will. He's fooled around in politics, and he's pretty good at it. I think he'll end up doing something politically; I hope so. I think politics needs nice people, decent people, and he is that. He is also sensible enough to not get too cynical over the weaknesses. Jimmy Carter must have looked like an unlikely presidential  candidate when he began the race, but he made it. What did  you do to make that happen? Robert Strauss: I didn't do anything. I'd like to take credit for it. Jimmy Carter did that himself with a couple of people who really helped him. One was Hamilton Jordan and the other was Jody Powell primarily, although he had an older friend, Charles Kirbo, who was a great help, and Bert Lance, another friend of his from Georgia. I was chairman of the campaign, but keep in mind I was Chairman of the Democratic Party when he got the nomination. Before he got the nomination, I was neutral, I wasn't for him. I had to be neutral, and I think the Carter people sort of resented my neutrality once they got there. Jimmy Carter and I didn't have that close a relationship until  I guess in New York, we had the convention, and people  wondered why I went to New York. I knew exactly why I took  the party there. It was a place we had to win, and Madison  Square Garden, even though it was too small, was the right  place to be. So I called those shots right, and at the Convention,  the Carter people -- the President and Mrs. Carter and their  people, of course, he wasn't president then -- found out that  they didn't know how to run a national convention and that  I did, and we didn't make any mistakes, fortunately, like the  Democrats usually do. I didn't let them fall apart in the  middle of the damned convention and tear each other up. I  controlled the floor, where the leftists or the rightists, depending,   couldn't get their hands on the mikes, and we kept it moderate,  and we elected a president. Then Jimmy Carter and I became,  as I went into his administration, closer and closer, and I guess  by the end of it, he called on me for everything. And I again --  part of the story I told today about how I grew in stature in  his administration -- went in with no particular stature and  came out as probably the fellow he turned to more than any  other for tough jobs. How did you become trade negotiator during the Carter   administration? Robert Strauss: I told President Carter's people and him that  I didn't want to go into his administration. I had been out  seven years as Treasurer and Chairman of the Democratic  Party, and after he had been in a couple of months,  Hamilton Jordan called and said, "The President wants to  talk to you and wants you to come over here. He's going to  ask you to take the trade job." And I had looked at it with   some favor. A reporter, writer Joe Kraft, a very able man,  had convinced me that maybe I ought to consider that job  if it wasn't filled, because it suited me. It was international,  and it had no bureaucracy. You could steer it and move it  and turn it and twist it, and you couldn't do it in these other  departments. That's one of the things he knew; I didn't want  to get involved in any bureaucracy. And Carter didn't want  me to have one of his more important portfolios anyway, even   if I had wanted it, so I wouldn't have been Secretary of  Treasury or Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense.  As a matter of fact, the present Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld,  recommended to Carter that he make me Secretary of Defense.  I don't think that recommendation meant much to Carter and it  certainly didn't to me, but I appreciated it. Carter was in some ways a fluke, because Jimmy Carter didn't like politics. Never did and still doesn't. But he is a marvelous man and a wonderful man, and I feel very close to him. What happened the second time he ran? Robert Strauss: Carter insisted on doing things in the first term  that he shouldn't do. For example, we never should have tried to  pass the Panama Canal bill the first term. That's a second term  thing, because you take a lot of scars on that. We leaned on everybody  terribly hard to get those votes and get that done and did it by one  vote, and we pushed people and pushed them in ways they didn't  want to be and made them vote for it, the Democrats. Carter felt  strongly that he had committed to do it and he was going to do it,  and even though Hamilton and Jody and I also encouraged him  to let that sit for the second term. But he did things like that, and  Jimmy Carter didn't want to do the political things that he   needed to do. He wanted to do substantive things that are  worthwhile, the same way he is right now. He has never changed  and is never going to. I have given up trying to change him. I  talk to him with some regularity and am very close to him and  very proud of it. Do you think he was too substantive to win reelection? Robert Strauss: I think that had something to do with it, and he also was not political enough. I would talk to him about how he ought to have Senator Russell  Long upstairs and "Talk to him about your economic program,  and he'll get your tax bill out, and he can do this and that ..."  but Carter didn't like to do that. But he would call frequently  at 6:15 in the morning, and he always had the same question:   "Are you drunk or sober?" And I'd say, "Well, I've just come  in about half an hour ago, Mr. President, but I've had a cold  shower and I am reasonably sober. What's on your mind?"  And he'd laugh and say, "Well, on my mind is I want you to   drop by here." So I'd go over there, get there at 7:00, and  he'd be in his little office off the Oval Office, been working  or an hour or two, and he'd have that little handwriting of  his, and he'd have some issue he wanted to discuss. He was  very substantive, but it was terribly difficult to get him to do   the political things. Rosalynnn was very good at political things. She grew into it. I saw her at first as a wife with a little housedress on, but she became a very sophisticated, worthwhile First Lady. They are substantive people. They have no room for small talk. But... Carter did have a sense of humor. He always liked for me to  introduce him. I found out there was a sense of humor there,  because he didn't know how to warm a crowd up, and people,  of course, did make these pompous introductions. And when  I would introduce him, I would say, "The next speaker is the  President of the United States. Now, I'm no fool. I know that  you're not supposed to dress as well as the man you're  introducing, particularly if it is the distinguished President.   And I'll tell you, I have tried to dress worse than this President,  but there's no way in the world I could dress worse than he  does." And the crowd would roar, and he would laugh, and  he'd get up and speak, or I would say, "Now, when the next  speaker gets up, please don't look at his ankles, because they'll  be showing -- because his pants are too short for him -- but  I can't get him to buy a new pair of pants." And the crowd  would roar. That kind of humor as well as putting some serious  things in there. But he liked that, and people would say,   "God, how can you say that about the President?" and I  would say, "Well, it just takes guts." The truth of the matter  is, Carter liked it. He would say to his people when he was  going into town to speak, "Tell the Mayor to speak and then let  Strauss introduce me," because I would use that humor. I was the warm-up act. Since leaving office, Jimmy Carter seems to have grown  in stature. Has it surprised you to see what a statesman he  has become? Robert Strauss: I told Carter, after he got beat, that he was going  into the greatest job in the world, when he learned how to do it  properly, the most marvelous job, and it was perfect for him, and  he looked at me as if I was out of my mind. I said, "Being a young  ex-president who cares about the country and wants to make a  difference, you have the greatest opportunity anybody could have."  He has come to realize that, that I was right, and he enjoys it.  Interestingly, when he got the Nobel Peace Prize -- I called his  home. I waited until 7:00. I had heard on the radio at 6:00 that  they had called him at 4:30, so I thought maybe he had gone  back to sleep. And I called there at 7:00 or quarter to 7:00,  down in that little town he lives in, and Rosalynn answered the  phone. I said, "Rosalynn, could I speak to the President? It's  just wonderful," I said. She said, "It is wonderful." And I said,  "Could I speak to him, or is he just too tired?" She said, "Bob,  he's out doing something." I said, "Doing what?" She said, "I  don't know. He said he had some things he wanted to get done  this morning." So he went about his business after he got that call. Doing errands? Robert Strauss: Doing errands, some things he had to get done. That was Jimmy Carter, both his strength and his weakness, I guess. But he is, people acknowledge, the greatest living ex-president, and always has been. Interestingly, he and Gerry Ford have become so close, they are really devoted friends, not just casual friends. You also had a close relationship to the Reagans, which   might surprise people because of your long association  with the Democratic Party. Robert Strauss: Yes. You'll remember we had the Iran Contra controversy of trading arms for hostages. One day in the middle of Ronald Reagan's second term I got a call from Mike Deaver, and he said, "The Reagans would like you to come up and talk to them tonight about the difficulties the President's having, growing out of Iran Contra and what you think of it, and what he ought to do." And I said, "Well Deaver, do they want to hear the truth or not, because I'm not interested in going up there." As a matter of fact, I told him a story that I've told you earlier about telling Lyndon Johnson everything I thought he wanted to hear, not one word of which I believed, and I learned my lesson on that. And he said, "Well, Mrs. Reagan wants him to hear the truth, and she thinks he's not hearing it. She thinks you'll tell him the truth. You know the truth and you'll tell him. She doesn't know anybody else who will, because they're all telling him what they want him to hear and what he wants to hear, that there's nothing to these stories." People were saying his Chief of Staff, Donald Regan was   part of the problem, but he didn't want to fire him. They  were close weren't they? Robert Strauss: They were very close. He liked Don Regan, and Don Regan was his Chief of Staff, of course. So... I went up there that night and met Deaver, and we went  through the tunnel. We met in the Treasury Department, in  Jim Baker's office, because they didn't want (the press) to see  me coming into the White House. And another gentleman was  along who was a prominent Republican. It is unimportant his  name now, but he had been a very important Republican and  was close to Don Regan and the Reagans. So they had the two  of us up. I didn't expect anybody else to be there, but we got   upstairs and walked through that long tunnel, as I said, which  is still outfitted, I guess, like from World War II. It still has  bunks on the wall, and it looks like food and canned things  there and life preservers, all kinds of communications stuff.  And you go through about four doublelocked doors, and the   Secret Service and I don't know what else, military people,  let you through those doors. It's impressive. Well, I got up  there, and it was just Deaver and the President and Mrs.  Reagan and this other person and me. And this was in their bedroom? Robert Strauss: It was in their sitting room, right off their bedroom,  in the small living quarters the President has up there. Not so  small, but not very spacious, either. We got into this discussion,  and the President started off by -- it took him about 20 minutes  to tell his side of that and how there was nothing to these stories  and how wrong they were. And he turned to this other fellow  and said, "I trust you agree?" and he said, "Mr. President, I  sure do. I think the press is blowing this all up. Eisenhower  had his U2 problems, and they blew over, and Truman had  his scandal problems, and they blew over, and this will blow  over. All you need to do is hold your fire and hang in there."  And the President turned to me and said, "I trust you agree,  Bob?" I said, "As a matter of fact, I couldn't disagree more."  After gulping a couple times, I said -- I told that story about  the Lyndon Johnson experience -- and I said, "Before I came  up here tonight, I asked Deaver if he wanted to hear the truth.  The truth of the matter was Deaver's answer to me was..."  -- I hadn't told it before -- "He said, 'She wants him to hear it.  I don't know whether he wants to hear it or not, but she wants  him to hear the truth.'" Robert Strauss: I have said many times to my children and  grandchildren that my father was a poor businessman and never  accumulated any amount of money whatsoever, but he left my  brother and me great strength, and one of the great strengths  was our ability to like people, and the personality that attracted  people and attracted their confidence. I think that has had  everything to do with my success in politics and other things.  Whenever I have worked with people in the political game, I  have been successful, and it isn't because I was the smartest  politician around, but I was certainly one of the most reliable ones. I told him that Don Regan was a fine man and a smart man, but he  wasn't made for that job. The Hill didn't like him very much, and he  had a sort of arrogance to him, because he was smarter than most  people, and stronger. He had become head of Merrill Lynch, and  that wasn't accidental; it was because he was a talented man. But  he was getting bad information, and he had people like Oliver  North around him, and the whole thing was a mess. I told the  President that, and we had a long, long discussion, and he said,  "Well, I don't expect to let the press pick my Chief of Staff," and  he asked what I would do. I said, "I would get somebody in there,"  and I named two or three people, including Howard Baker and a  fellow named Bill Brock, and I said, "These people have  credibility, and the Hill likes them." And I said, "Howard Baker  would make a great Chief of Staff." As a matter of fact, Howard  Baker would have made a great president. I might add, Senator  Howard Baker is now Bush's appointee as our Ambassador to  Japan, and is serving in Tokyo right now.  Anyway... Something came up, and I was, I guess, strong in my answer  again, and the President heard enough. He said, "Well, I think  we've had enough of this," and in a nice, gentlemanly way  -- as I have said before, in a nice way as only Ronald Reagan  can do, and in a gentlemanly way -- he threw my ass out of  the White House. That's kind of a crude way of putting it,  but it's also fairly expressive of what happened. And I got  home and was having a strong drink with my wife and  telling her what took place, as I always did, and we went  to bed and went to sleep -- it was late. And I was just getting  ready to go sleep, about to fall asleep, and the phone rang,  and it was Nancy Reagan. She called and said, "Bob, that  was very brave tonight," and I said, "Well, yes, thank you.  It was probably very foolish." She said, "No. It was  something that needed to be done and had to be done."  And she very graciously said, "I don't know anybody but  you that would have done it and done it as well." She said,  "Ronnie is very mad at us," and I said, "Well, I can  understand why he's made at you -- you set him up, and  I guess I'm the messenger, so that's who you kill." And  she laughed and said, "Ronnie doesn't stay mad, and he  was mad tonight, and he showed it. Didn't eat his dinner  and didn't talk to me and went to bed. That gave me a  chance to call and tell you how much I appreciate it and  that Ronnie will not be mad tomorrow." And she said,  "As a matter of fact, Bob, he heard every word you said,  and I know Ronnie, and in the next day or two, he'll get  rid of Don Regan, which is what he has to do." And I laughed,  and a couple days later, I was out West somewhere, getting  ready to make a speech, and the phone rang, and it was the  White House. It was Nancy Reagan, who said, "Bob, I just  want you to know that Ronnie's going to fire Don Regan  tomorrow." And I said, "Well, I know you're glad, and I  think it's a thing he has to do, as distasteful as you find it."  And she said, "Well, I know it's going to leak today. That's  the reason I called you." And I laughed and said, "Yes, you  do know it's going to leak," and she said, "Yes, I think it's  going to leak." But she said, "This had to be done." And that became a friendship, and we became very close.  I talk to her regularly, and Mike Deaver, who is a good friend  of mine, is one of her close advisors. What do the words "the American Dream" mean to you? Robert Strauss: Oh, I don't know what an "American Dream" is. I think that what we have to strive for is the kind of America  that we almost  have, and we are getting closer every year,  and that is an America that has the kind of opportunity and  climate that everybody can dream. It's hard to believe you  can expect some of these poor people who are born into  poverty and into homes with no parent, no father, no mother,  alcohol, drugs -- you can't expect those people to have dreams.  But I have found that everyone in this country who has an  opportunity does have their own individual dream. Maybe it's  just for a  job that pays a good wage, and that's a very good  dream for some people. For other people, it's the presidency,  or great wealth, a great invention. But as long as we have the  kind of climate where people can dream, then they will dream,  and a lot of those dreams will come true. But an awful lot of  people in this country today cannot have that kind of dream,  because it would be too foolish. We're moving in the right  direction, and I am always an optimist, and I am very high  on that climate becoming the climate that permeates this  country all the way across, not just for those of us who  have been more blessed. Do you ever commune with your mom's spirit and say,  "Mom, I'm advising presidents?" Robert Strauss: No, I don't do that, but I have always regretted  that she couldn't live to see this. Maybe she is seeing it from somewhere  else. I hope so. I'm not sure I believe she is, but I'm not convinced that  she absolutely isn't. You certainly fulfilled her wildest American dream. Thank you.