A VIEW FROM A FAR DIFFERENT HILL

A VIEW FROM A FAR DIFFERENT HILL

By John Sherman

Once upon a time in a land far away, men and women gathered to make our world a better place.  Their task was to come to agreements defined by compassion, fairness and security for all.  They met on a hill overlooking the capital.  They pushed and pulled and haggled, always with respect and comity.  It was arduous and sometimes fractious.  But in the end they found a center.  And it became the law of the land.

That place and those days were not a complete fairytale.  I was there during the 1970s and ‘80s—still regarded as the halcyon years.  Back then, the Congress took on enormous issues with great risk of failure: equal rights, the cold war, famine, trade, old age access to health care, nuclear containment.

Given the partisan chaos and paralysis these days, I rarely confess my old attachment.

I had the great good luck to work for three of the most influential men of that era.  As memories will, the offbeat are the first to surface.  Following are a few.

ABRAHAM RIBICOFF

Returning from Chile and a newspaper fellowship, I was out of a job.  An old friend from my days at The Hartford Courant pointed me to Abraham Ribicoff, the senior senator from Connecticut.  His resume: congressman, governor, John F. Kennedy’s first cabinet appointment.  Solon of solons.

Press secretary and writer, I was joining a team for his reelection run the following year.  I was looking forward to seeing a campaign from inside.  It turned out to be a phony race.  His hapless opponent was a Black airline pilot who supported making marijuana legal.

It was customary that four of us would meet with the senator after lunch to discuss issues of the day.  Two I remember vividly.

Ribicoff, who was Jewish, was getting immediate updates from his international staffer, Morris Amitay, during the 1973 Yom Kippur war between Israel and Egypt, among others.  Needless to say, the senator was a close friend of Henry Kissinger. (They may have used the same tailor.)  That afternoon, Morry strutted around the office, almost lecturing.

“You’ve got to call Senator Jackson about sending more aid.  You’ve got to call Kissinger about the Italian embargo.  You’ve got  to…”. Ribicoff’s expression never changed.

The meeting over, I forgot some papers and returned to his office.  The door was shut, so I went around to his back door, which was ajar.  The senator, who later voted to give Arabs spy planes, was leaning over his desk.  “I want you to get through your head that I am not an Israeli senator.  I am a United States senator.”  Morry’s service had ended.

At another meeting, the senator, who was always beautifully turned out, was eating an apple. It was difficult to stick to tax reform without watching the apple.  We became mesmerized as he got down to the core and seeds.  The room stopped as he proceeded to eat the entire core.  Meeting adjourned.

AL ULLMAN

Realizing that Ribicoff was about to coast through his last term, I moved over to the House Ways and Means Committee.  It’s new chairman was Al Ullman, who grew up at a railroad crossing in eastern Oregon.  He made his way to Columbia University and studied under perhaps the century’s most influential theologian, Rhinehold Niebuhr.

He was an unassuming man, clearly rooted in Oregon’s emptiness.  A man who thought that good manners was good politics.  He would soon learn that all the integrity in the world was not going to unite Houston and Boston on oil quotas.  That you had to use your elbows to proceed.  He was the most prominent casualty in Ronald Reagan’s 1980 sweep.  The eulogies at his funeral mirrored those at Jimmy Carter’s.

Our first speech outing was to New York, first to Wall Street and a gathering of hoary old men with white hair and ruddy faces.  I remember the wood paneled hall, hung from the ceiling with battle flags.

We motored uptown to the Hotel Americana.  A good staffer, I went up to the reservation desk to announce the congressman’s arrival.  A bellhop appeared and we rode up to our rooms.  The bellhop showed Ullman into his room while I waited outside. After a full minute passed, the bellhop stuck his head out of the door with quizzical look.

The room had two beds and a door to a bath. Ullman was sitting on one, removing a prosthesis from a leg lost in a car accident.  He had a welcoming smile, as if all this was quite normal.  As the Ways and Means chairman, he commanded a vast empire—including almost half of the federal budget.  (Clearly sharing a room was a plus for the budget.)  I don’t recall his snoring.

DAN ROSTENKOWSKI

Dan Rostenkowski took Ullman’s chair after his defeat.  He was a large man from Chicago.  He talked from Chicago.  As the protege of the city’s legendary boss, Mayor Richard Daly,  he was not a man to cross.  “He was Daly’s guy.”

His voice was rough and deep.  He was known as “Rosty.”  (When he went campaigning for Kennedy in the deep south, he lopped off the “ski.”) He came to Congress under Eisenhower and left under Clinton.  When he entered a room, things stopped, diners pointed.  He admitted to being the worst dressed man in congress, except for Senator Carl Curtis from Nebraska.

During my six years with him, Rostenkowski nailed more legislation to the barn door than anyone of that era.  I used to liken him to a walrus, waddling around on the rocks—ungainly, massive.  But when he slipped beneath the waves, he had the grace of a ballerina and the force of a bull.

I would watch him approach a hold-out on a bill he wanted passed.  His voice became soft as his appeal began.  He would reach out for an elbow and gently pull the truant closer and closer until their faces almost touched, all the while humming his lullaby.  The seduction usually ended with a vote in his pocket.

My first speech outing with the chairman was to hometown Chicago.  As we descended the steps to the tarmac, three black Cadillacs were waiting—their doors open for us to choose.  The bags took care of themselves.  We climbed into the middle car.  I asked about the other two.  “Security.”  We’re talking guys with pork pie hats and guns.

We pulled up to the iconic Palmer House.  There was a rush of bellhops.  I was in my room in two minutes.  A suite half with size of a basketball court with flowers, fruit and a fully stocked bar.

For just a moment I remembered my night with Al.