MBB: Would you like to share a great memory or anecdote related to your work as a speechwriter?

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 461.

MBB: As a speech writer, you do all the leg work, the creative work, then the person who delivers the speech gets all the credit. Is it hard writing something for which someone else gets the credit?

TSL: It is true that speechwriters are the most invisible staff members in Washington. They are often introduced merely as aides or special assistants. But, recognition aside, it has been an honor to work with some of the most extraordinary leaders in our nation on issues that have changed the course of history, an honor to have played even a small role in the great debates of our time. The personal satisfaction of being present for history is the speechwriter's reward.

TSL: There was a moving story Senator Biden told which, as I mentioned earlier, we worked into Strom Thurmond's eulogy. It was a moving story of redemption that Senator Biden delivered at Strom's funeral and it went like this:

“When I first arrived in the Senate in 1972 I met with John Stennis, an old southern senator who became my friend. We sat on the other end of this gigantic, grand mahogany table he used as his desk that had been the desk of Senator Richard Russell. It was the table upon which the Southern Manifesto was signed.

“Senator Stennis patted the leather chair next to him when I walked in to pay my respects as a new young senator, which was the order of the day. And he said, ‘Sit down. Sit down here son.'

“And he looked at me and he said, ‘Son, what made you run for the Senate?'

“And like a darn fool I told him the truth . . . I said, ‘Civil rights, sir.' And as soon as I did I could feel the beads of perspiration pop out of my head. And he looked at me and said, ‘Good, good, good.' And that was the end of the conversation.

“Well, eighteen years later . . . we had become friends. I saw him sitting behind the same table eighteen years later, only this time in a wheelchair. His leg had been amputated because of cancer. And I was going to look at offices, because in my seniority, his office had become available as he was about to leave.

“I went in and sat down and he looked at me as if it were yesterday and he said, ‘Sit down Joe, sit down,' and tapped the chair next to him. And he said something that startled me. He said, ‘Remember the first time you came to see me, Joe?' And I shook my head. I didn't remember. And he leaned forward and recited the story.

“I said to him, ‘I was a pretty smart young fellow, wasn't I, Mr. Chairman?' He said, ‘Joe, I wanted to tell you something then that I'm going to tell you now. You're going to take my office aren't you?' And I said, ‘Yes sir, Mr. Chairman.'

“And he ran his hand back and forth across the mahogany table in a loving way and he said, ‘You see this table, Joe?'

“And I said, ‘Yes sir, Mr. Chairman.' He said, ‘This table was the flagship of the Confederacy from 1954 to 1968.' He said, ‘We sat here, most of us from the deep South, the old Confederacy, and we planned the demise of the Civil Rights movement.'

“Then he looked at me and said, ‘And now it's time; it's time that this table go from the possession of a man against civil rights to a man who is for civil rights.'

“And I was stunned. And he said, ‘One more thing, Joe,' he said. ‘The Civil Rights movement did more to free the white man than the black man.'

“And I looked at him and I didn't know what he meant, and in only John Stennis fashion, he said, ‘It freed my soul; it freed my soul.'”

When Senator Biden told me that story, I knew it had to be in the eulogy for Senator Thurmond. I took that story, and ended it as follows:

“Strom Thurmond's soul is free today. His soul is free. The Bible says: Learn to do well, seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow, come now and let us reason together, though your sins may be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”

After hearing that story, I sat at that old mahogany table many times, through many meetings. Each time I would quietly open a drawer just enough to peek inside, hoping a small piece of history might roll out, left behind by men like Stennis and Thurmond, a note from a conversation they had, an old fountain pen used to scribble the Southern Manifesto. Now, I can't help but think of the first African-American elected President of the United States and the man to whom that table was entrusted, about to be inaugurated as his Vice President. Times have changed, but that table remains as it was, tucked away somewhere in the Senate, holding a unique place in American political history. I wonder who will sit at it tomorrow.