George Tames Oral History Interviews, January 13 through May 16, 1988

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COMPETING WITH TELEVISION
Interview #4
Wednesday, April 27, 1988

TAMES: The role of photographer, and photography in general, has been influenced by new techniques. There have been drastic changes in photography that have been almost unbelievable. Right now, the AP is experimenting with and has a very advanced transmitter that takes your negative and transmits it over the telephone lines to a computer in the AP bureau, which then goes on digital, on a tape. Then they can project that on a screen, and they can actually pick up, out of a 35mm, one tenth of a 35mn negative and make it an 8 x 10 print that looks as good, grain less, as a regular 8 x 10s shot today using full 35s. This technique is going to revolutionize photography, because pictures are going to be stored in computers, and they are going to be conjured up as needed, flashed on the screen, captioned there on the machine, push a button and they go straight to be printed. So there won't be any files. The photographer who shoots has then got to be very careful that the images that he has are not lost, in the sense that he doesn't have any permanent file. But he will have a memory bank, so to speak, and he can conjure up pictures years from now out of the machine, and make prints right off of it. That's going to be a big revolution in photography.

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RITCHIE: The Library of Congress is preserving photographs now on video-discs.

TAMES: That's exactly the system that I'm talking about. And as fast as they do it, somebody comes along with a better system. I think that's going to be the way of the future. They'll only be having pictures on the walls when people deliberately ask for them. News photography is going to change dramatically.

RITCHIE: Speaking of changes in technology, I wanted to ask you about the impact of television on your trade. Did having TV cameras around make life more difficult for you?

TAMES: Very much so. It was a shock for me to discover all of a sudden that showing up at an event, be it political or social or an event of national importance, like a convention or a signing of a treaty, something involving national importance, where the New York Times usually was front and center, because we were the paper of record and the prestigious paper, and I had no trouble getting the positions that I wanted. And one day I showed up at a session and saw a TV camera and a man operating it in a roped off area. So I just ducked under there to get into the roped off area -- and was ordered out by the officials, who were State Department, I believe. They told me this was a TV stand. I said, "Well, what about us?" "Oh, well, TV reaches more people

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and this is an event for the majority of the people." So they had decided to let TV have front and center and we just had to go up where would could. That was the first time that I had felt the full impact of TV, although I could see it coming. There was no question about it.

At the time, everybody was shooting for the six or seven o'clock afternoon news. Today with [Ted] Turner's cable TV, when we have five waves of photographers going into the president's office to greet a dignitary, or to photograph a dignitary like Brezhnev with the president, after the first wave goes in, and when they come up each other wave has forty-five seconds in the room. By the time the last wave has gone through and has come out, they walk into the press room and it's already on CNN /Cable News Network/ coming over the TV. The first wave just went to the wall and slapped a disc in without even any voice-over. Just zip, there it goes. The event only took place three minutes ago and it's already on TV. Instantaneous, you don't even have to wait for the afternoon news any more. Of course it made a tremendous difference.

Politicians are playing for it, and what's even more important, the discs and the satellites, which means that every TV station in the country -- every TV station in the world -- has the potential of receiving a signal for them alone from any part of the world. So whereas a Congressman or a senator who wants to

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talk to his constituency on any subject used to have to wait two or three days after he taped something or filmed something in Washington in the studios and then mailed it, or air expressed it to the local stations; now all they do is phone them and say, "Look, this is what I've got and it's coming at two o'clock, bouncing off the satellite." So they just tune into it and pick it up. So it's almost instantaneous. I don't object to that. I think that an informed citizenry is the only way that democracy can work. But I sometimes wonder whether we're getting too much of a one-sidedness of the issue. Naturally, if I was a member of the Senate I would give my view, and naturally my view is the correct one. Everybody thinks their view is the correct one. I've never known anyone who didn't think their view was the correct one. I've known generals who outnumbered their opponents ten to one and they still wanted more troops; they never have enough. The truth of course is how we perceive it.

Look at the Israelis and the Palestinians. In a way it's ironic that the Israelis can raid in Algeria and kill a Palestinian, who's the second in command of the Palestinian forces and say that it's part of an act of war and not terrorism. Yet the same Palestinians fly into Israel and kill five or six soldiers and it's terrorism. It's a different viewpoint. One man's terrorism is another man's heroism. One man's subsidy is another man's give-away. It depends on which side of the fence

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you're on, and it's amazing how values and viewpoints change. I have a friend who has had a very bad streak of luck. His hospital bills have run him down. He's always been a rock-ribbed Republican, able to take care of himself, and gung-ho for independence and free enterprise. Then he ran into this bad streak of luck health wise. He had to declare bankruptcy, he went through his whole fortune. He wasn't old enough to qualify for Medicare. Here's a man who's always been against the socialistic programs of the Democratic party now advocating national health insurance! So your viewpoints change. Isn't that amazing.

RITCHIE: Tell me, when television really began to make its impact, did you feel any pressure from your newspaper to respond? Did they want more pictures, or different views? How did they approach the competition with television?.

TAMES: Well, you were competing not only with your editor but you were competing with TV, because he sat up there on his fat butt watching it, and he was getting the whole thing from different camera angles, and you were in one spot, and you were just shooting singles of what you see. Previous to TV, the only way he had to judge how you did was what the wire photos sent him. So he'd have three wire service photos and your picture. Then he could say, "Well, Tames did a better job. He got a better angle." Now, with TV, we're really hustling. We're trying to get into situations where TV hasn't been. We're trying to get behind

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the scenes and trying to anticipate one day in advance of what the situation is going to be, what the report is going to be, who the senators are that are involved in an upcoming report.

Senator Baker, at the ceremony for me last month, when I was the [American Legion's] Man of the Year, spoke about our relationship, and friendship we had over the years in the Senate. He said I'd come into his office, and he'd say to me, "What am I suppose to do?" And I'd say, "Well, aren't you meeting with X, Y and Z, on X, Y and Z subject?" "George," he'd say, "I haven't even thought about that yet." I'd say, "Well, you'd better start thinking about it, because it's coming up." I'd say, "Are you going to see so and so?" He'd say, "Not today, but maybe tomorrow.." So I would come back the following day and try to get something in anticipation of what was going to happen. Then TV would pick up on that. They'd walk into offices and say, "Look, you gave this to Tames, you didn't give it to us. We're catching hell from our office in New York." And when those men are making a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, they're supposed to produce. So then all of a sudden I found that some of the senators and members of the House, and the Speaker particularly, would say, "George, we can't let you in. If we have to let TV in, then we might as well not let anybody come in." So we all lost. That made me feel unhappy. I felt that not only I wasn't doing my job, but some of the flavor of politics was being lost.

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I used to say that "this is historic, and you should let me do it." It's just like the day that President Kennedy was assassinated. I immediately grabbed my camera and rushed into the press gallery and leaned over the gallery and started taking pictures of the senators on the floor, milling around, and pointing, and shouting. It was turmoil on the floor, and unlike today it wasn't recorded on TV. The Capitol Police grabbed me and confiscated my film, which by the way I don't know what they ever did with it. We've never been able to find out what happened to that film. I tried to impress upon them that it was historic, that at least give it to some one who could keep it, rather than throw it down the toilet. But I don't know what happened to it. It would have been the only pictures of the reaction in the Senate. I did make a picture of Mike Mansfield. I was with Mike Mansfield when the story came through. I was in his office, and we had heard that the president had been shot, and was seriously injured, and was in the hospital. Since I knew Mike Mansfield for many, many years, and we're old friends, I went down to his office and we just sort of sat there and drank coffee and just started talking about how we were going to operate with the president recovering and with Johnson taking over, and how the Senate was going to operate. We were discussing various methods, and he was telling me the feelings he had, and then the phone rang. It was Lyndon Johnson on Air Force One, telling Mike Mansfield that the president had died and that he, Lyndon Johnson, had just taken the

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oath of office, and asked for Mike Mansfield's help. Mike said yes, you can count on me, and put the phone down. And then Mike just almost broke down, and I have a picture of him. I picked up my camera and made a shot of Mike in that mood.

I'm wandering -- because you know how my mind works -- but TV has made a tremendous impact, so much so that I'm afraid that more and more it is becoming the news itself, rather than the subject. Because the human element comes in here, where the individual who is a correspondent for TV has got to come up with something. Literally, that's what they are doing: conjuring up confrontations. I saw them baiting [Michael] Dukakis the other day on this Persian Gulf situation. They had just announced that we were attacking the Iranians and had hit one of their ships, and they were firing some missiles at us. That was all that was released. Next thing you know they were poking the camera lens into Dukakis' face and saying, "What do you think of it?" I mean, he just heard about it! If he had been stupid and made some comment, they would have blown it all out of proportion. Then they started badgering the guy, because he wouldn't comment! He said, "I can't comment, I only know what you know. This is an ongoing situation, wait until we get all the facts in. Then we can come to some judgment on it." I guess they wanted him to say, "If I had been president, I would not." He's not president.

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We have this confrontation-type of journalism that I call "red meat journalism." We've raised a whole generation of correspondents on it since Watergate. They saw how members of the media made their names, not through writing books, or writing thoughtful articles, but simply by exposing so-called corruption. They all want a big piece of this corruption, and there's not that much corruption out there. So they try to conjure it, or try to make something out of the littlest things. We used to think a reporter who was writing a story today for tomorrow's paper, was writing too soon and too fast after the event, and didn't have time to think. But here today, with television reaching so many millions and able to influence people so greatly, we are moving even faster. But I can't think of a good answer. If someone had a better way of doing it, I wish they'd come up with it.

RITCHIE: You said that because of television you were shut out of certain areas. Do you think that held back on the informality of pictures, the backdoor meetings, people at ease, and the rest of that?

TAMES: Oh, yes.

RITCHIE: And is television perhaps a moral formal recording of events?

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TAMES: Well, when I used to go in on a one-on-one basis, or one-on-five with five senators in there really discussing very important events, I was able to slip around and make my shots and be almost invisible, with a silent click of the camera. The most important thing was that I had the complete confidence of the members, who knew that if I heard anything I wouldn't say anything. And a photographer's ears usually are closed when you're working, because you're concentrating on a picture and what is happening. It's only after you leave the room or you leave the situation that all of a sudden your subconscious has picked up conversations and words, and you sit there and you wonder, "my God, that was pretty important."

I think I can say -- and I'm very proud of my record -- I have been privy to a lot of information that could have been very, very detrimental, and also beneficial to our country, and I have never once opened my mouth. And for a guy who loves to talk, let me tell you that is something! I tell you I was right on the verge many times of saying something, but then I'd back off. I don't believe you will find any member of Congress who will say that George Tames leaked, or that George Tames heard something that he shouldn't have heard. Now, I have heard things, and I have typed them, and I have gone back to the individual members with the

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typed story and said, "Look, this is what I heard. I think this is good for you and good for the country." I did that with Eisenhower. And I've had them say no, and I've had them say yes. That's the way I work.

Now, with TV, it's impossible, because it's not only that they want the image, but they want the sound. They're picking up every word, and you can't say anything. It's almost reached the point of the old movie when individual senators and the president would actually carry on a very serious conversation when we were in the room, stills and newsreels, only to discover much later that there were people watching the newsreels who could read lips, and were actually picking up the conversation of the president and others. So they had to stop. It became a favorite trick by politicians like Senator [Arthur] Vandenberg, particularly -- because I remember he started it -- where the newsreels would ask him to talk to his visitor, and he'd say okay, and he'd go, "Walla, walla, wallawallawalla. Walla, wallawallawalla. Walla? Wah, wah wah." And that's all he'd say. The guest, unless he was in on it, didn't know what the hell was happening. Or if he was he would either laugh, or carry on in the same vein. It was just simply to keep the theater goers from reading lips.

Now the president can't even sneeze or an open mike will pick up any word. This particular president has almost a compulsion to be funny, to have his one-liners, and he has some good one-liners,

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and he is funny, but it's almost a compulsion to be continuously funny. He'll make cracks which are meant for just the inner-circle, that are not meant to go out on the air, and he'll get caught. It's the same way that Lyndon Johnson had a compulsion to tell scatological, Texas cowboy, bunkhouse jokes, which are great in the bunkhouse, and great bonding for cowboys, but by far and large are chauvinistic, degrading to women and minorities. You don't say these damn things out, except within the circle. I'm sure that the blacks and the Chinese and all the other ethnics have jokes they tell about us. In fact, I've told jokes to Mexicans, and they say, "Oh, no, we tell the same joke, but about Texans." You understand what I'm trying to say?

RITCHIE: One other thing I wanted to ask you about -- especially about the TV cameras -- in the Capitol it's common to see the press and photographers bunched together, say outside the Foreign Relations Committee room. Everybody's got the cameras set up, they've got the TV cameras and the still cameras, and they're all hovering around waiting for someone to come out. While looking through your pictures, I don't get a sense that you spent a lot of time in crowds like that.

TAMES: No, not in stakeouts.

RITCHIE: What was your reaction to that sort of situation? And why do photographers spend so much time on those stakeouts?

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TAMES: One, TV has got to do it so they can get their talking heads. Still photographers do it because they're lazy. This is the easy thing to do. You show up, it's there, you shoot it. Nobody's going to complain that you didn't get anything good, or you didn't get anything different, as long as nobody else did. Let me tell you, a lot of photographers breathed a sigh of relief when I was no longer up there. Because their offices are not constantly hounding them saying, "Look what Tames got yesterday. Why didn't you have that?" Then of course, they reached the point where they used to say, "Oh, that's just a New York Times picture, no other paper in the country would want that, except the New York Times." So it's a New York Times-type of picture. Now you can justify not working. But basically I think that's the thing. They're going to get their salary, they've got something usable. They got the same thing that TV got, so they'll go with it.

I always want to go around the back. I always want to go in advance. I always want to make my pictures when the witnesses shows up, just as he sat down, just as he talked, do a few little things there, and then get out. Another picture of him gesturing and talking is just not worth it. Try to get him with the chairman in advance, try to get all these things done way in advance, that's the only way, anyway that I'm aware of, of doing the job. And of course, unless you're completely immersed in the

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news, and right up to date with events that are moving so fast, you lose your touch. It's taken me two and a half years but all of a sudden -- although I still read the newspapers -- I'm starting to lose the feeling that I've got to be somewhere, or that I'm missing out. I still get the feeling that I'm missing out. I'd love to be at the primaries, or following this guy or that guy, but then think of what a mob scene that's going to be, what a push and a shove it's going to be! I'm not six-foot-six, I'm five-foot-seven. I can't see over these monsters that are TV cameramen today, and they just block everything. Photography is a young man's game, I'll be seventy. Although I think of myself as being in excellent physical condition, I hope to God I know my limitations. I'd like to sit back and do what I want. I'll be shooting some stuff tomorrow, give my lectures.

I've never had any secrets as far as my business is concerned. If I found out a new angle, a new gimmick on a camera or a lens, I was one of the first ones that broadcast it. "Look," I'd say, "this is what you can do." "You don't have to do it this way, you can do this." And by and large I find the majority of the good photographers are that way, because this business, like most business, still pays off on brains and imagination. It's flattering to have someone follow behind you and imitate you. There are very few, and you don't have to worry about them getting ahead of you, because they're always following you.

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Today I lectured to the Smithsonian Institution Associates, there were about fifty of them I guess who came from all over the country for a one week seminar here. It's part of the Smithsonian Associates program. I found it pretty stimulating, as I usually do. One of the photographers was showing me some of his work, and he told me that he thought it was as good as mine. I agreed with him, it was "as good as," it wasn't better. I said, "Son, are you familiar with the Caine Mutiny?" He said, "Yes." I said, "What was the trigger word that made the captain go nuts, when he was finally exposed as being a psycho?" He said, "Strawberries." I said, "The words that trigger me are: as good as." When I hear that word, bam. I had a person call me on the phone and tell me: "Mr. Tames, I was walking by and I saw some of your guttering needed work. We're a small firm, but we're as good as the big firms." I said, "Whoops, right there, don't go any further. You ain't got the job." [Laughs] If there's anything that I've ever heard in my life that really sets me off it's I'm "as good as" you as a mechanic, or as a writer, or as a runner, or as photographer, or any other profession. If you are as good as I am, just keep your mouth shut. If you're better than I am, you let me know, and you show me, and I'll be the first one to pat you on the back.

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I still do not fear any of these guys out there. And they should be making me feel old and out of it, but they're not. Now, this new technique, with the disc cameras, I'll have to get into that. There's a complete new era we're getting into, and the young guys using this medium might come up with something. It will sure make news photography a lot easier, but then you become mechanical, you become a technician. You're just simply recording instead of interpreting. You've got to get the feel of it. You just can't go sit on a stakeout and make another head shot of [Barry] Goldwater today or Tip O'Neill tomorrow, and get by. Then when they say, why didn't you give us something different, you say, "Oh, they won't let me in." That's the easy way. You have to convince somebody that what you're doing is not only important, you have to play on their ego.

When I say I'm from the Times, those are pretty powerful words. I never make any bones about the fact that I'm a member of the New York Times company. I'd be lying if I said it didn't make any difference. It does make a difference.

RITCHIE: You mentioned before about not being six-foot-six. But we looked at two of your pictures, one of the looking at Joe McCarthy through the door of a very crowded hearing room during the Army-McCarthy hearings, where you were obviously standing up on the railing, or someplace high to get the perspective, and the same thing was true looking over the railing

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down into the Rotunda during Eisenhower's funeral. I gather that a good photographer has to be agile, and couldn't be afraid of heights.

TAMES: Oh, yes. I've had photographers go up with me to the Capitol dome and hug the wall, literally hug the wall, and not walk over to the rail and look down much less get up on top of the railing like I did and lean over, you know, to get that angle. Oh, I think about some of the things I did! I could have fallen down and I would have joined Eisenhower -- parts of me would have, anyway. But you don't think of the danger, you just do it, and then later you might shake a little bit thinking about what you've done. But not in the excitement of the moment. You have to have good balance, and know what you're doing. I always try to show something that showed the whole thing, the feeling of a hearing, the feeling of an event, in sort of an abstract way. You can record any event, but at the same time, it's an artistic view of what is happening. It can be used again and again, like some of my stuff has.

I'm still very flattered when somebody asks for something. When I was at Western Kentucky, I took about four of these posters I have [of an exhibit of Tames' photographs], made for me by the Times, and I said, "I have these four posters," and my God the hands went up before I could even say I'd give them away if they wanted them. Then I said, "If you really want them, you can write

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down your names and I'll ship them to you." Well, I had twenty-seven names! My wife and I packed up twenty-seven posters, which I signed individually, and I shipped them out. It cost me forty-four dollars. But I'm flattered that somebody would even want my work. People say, like you and others, that you're doing great work, this is historic -- I do have a sense of history, no question about that, because I don't think you can go to any other photographer's house in Washington and see what we've got here.

RITCHIE: I noticed this picture of Hubert Humphrey. It's an uncharacteristically solemn-looking picture of Humphrey.

TAMES: Yes, this picture was made shortly after word came of the assassination of Martin Luther King. We were at a rally at a hotel, I think it was the Sheraton Park, I could be wrong, but at a political rally and Hubert Humphrey was speaking. When the word came, Humphrey got up and made the announcement and then he asked for a minute of silence for Martin Luther King. This was taken then, and the juxtaposition of LBJ's portrait in back, I composed that. I think this is in color and in black-and-white.

Then I left the hotel and went to the White House. All the way down Connecticut Avenue I could see this black smoke, just beyond the White House and to my left, and up Fourteenth Street. When I got to the White House, there on the lawn by the fountain in the center of the White House north lawn was the whole press

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corps, standing there looking towards Fourteenth and F Street, where the fire was burning that close to the White House, just two city blocks away. This smoke just kept building up, and building up, and building up, and getting worse. I went to the Capitol and took some pictures around there, the troops in their positions. I went into the predominantly black sections of the city, and automobiles were burning in the street, and buildings were burning, and the police were coming and tear gas was very much in evidence. I just couldn't believe it was happening to my city. I came home and had dinner, and then insisted on going back. Fran, my wife, objected. She said "You have five children, you don't want to get killed. You just stay here." I said, "I've got to photograph this, at least as much as I can, but I promise that I will not go too deep into the riot." I made a few pictures of the burning and stayed away from the actual rioting. I figured I'd leave that to the younger ones. Yes, that was a very dramatic time. I never thought that I'd ever see a reaction of that type in this city. And it could happen again.

RITCHIE: This picture was also taken while Humphrey was running for president, and you mentioned that if had been elected you would probably have become the White House photographer.

TAMES: Oh, yes, I would have become the White House photographer because Hubert Humphrey and I were very good friends. I was privileged to call Hubert Humphrey my friend. We

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talked about it several times, that I would become the official photographer. I would have, and probably you wouldn't be here today taking this down, because I would have ended my career, at least the type of work that I'm doing, after his term, probably in '72 or '76 or thereabouts, and who knows what I would have done after that. I wouldn't have had the continuation of the presidents. Or maybe I would have. Who knows? I would have gone in and had the confidence of Hubert Humphrey and I would have been able to do the type of work, and record his administration in a way that was not possible say under Carter.

I got a request unofficially, sort an inquiry as to whether I'd be interested to be Carter's White House photographer, but you see, Carter did not have a White House photographer. He campaigned against the Imperial Presidency, and he didn't think that it was necessary to have an official photographer. He was perfectly content to let the photo office work the way it does without the title or designation. So as far as I was concerned, I would just as soon stay at the New York Times, which gave me a variety of assignments, instead of taking a chance and going over to record the Carter presidency, where I knew that I would be restricted in my access. So that never came off. Carter never had any official photographer.

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When Reagan came in, he had Mike Evans to be his official photographer. We knew that was going to happen. Mike had been hanging around him and photographing Reagan for eight years, for Time magazine. Every time there was something involving Reagan, he'd go and do it. So he got to know him, and Reagan got to know him, and then he became the White House photographer. But Mike only stayed four years, and when he left they never replaced him. The staff is still there, they're still functioning the same way, but they don't have the title. And I have enough of an ego to want that title, even though it doesn't mean that much. But still you would just be the top photographer in the country, at least in title if not financially. So it never came about. I think that not so much my own personal disappointment at not becoming the photographer, but I think the country would have been better off if Humphrey had become president. We would have gotten out of Vietnam a lot earlier.

RITCHIE: What sort of person was Humphrey, especially when you knew him as a young senator in the '40s and '50s?

TAMES: I first met him in Philadelphia at the Democratic Convention of '48, at which time he was mayor of Minneapolis, and he gave a civil rights speech. His ideas on where the country, and the thrust of the Democratic Party, made me fall in love with him in a moment. I had never met him, and then I met him. What really cinched it was when he started speaking, the Dixiecrats,

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headed by Senator Strom Thurmond, got up and walked out of the convention and formed the Dixiecrat Party, of Southern Democrats, nominated their own presidential candidate. So you had the regular Democrats, the Dixiecrats, then you had that left-wing group of Democrats that were headed up by former Vice President [Henry] Wallace, and I think a cowboy named [Glen] Taylor, who was a senator. He used to strum his guitar on the steps of the Capitol. I'll never forget, when he first came he got his guitar out and started strumming, "Oh, give me a home near the Capitol dome," or something like that. But he ran as the vice president on that ticket. So the Democrats were split three ways that year.

I met Hubert then, and then he came to the Senate and we became fast friends. I always followed his career and tried to help him in any way I could, promoted him. He was a very good senator, I used to say. I made some very good friends. We were all young, we were all about the same age, and we all had the same ambitions and same dreams. I was absolutely convinced that American was going to be a helluva better place to live after World War II. I never thought we'd be in this race with the Russians, and the armaments. I thought we'd be lifting the whole world out of poverty and ruling the show down there. But I've always been sort of a mystic and a dreamer.

RITCHIE: Humphrey had that streak of idealism.

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TAMES: Yes, he did. Maybe that's what appealed to me, that this is the way you do it. And if you had Humphrey it could be done. He reminds me of Jesse Jackson, with the type of programs he has, and the enthusiasm he evokes. But Jesse Jackson is just all talk, whereas Hubert at least had this record as a mayor, his record as senator. Jesse Jackson right now would be giving Dukakis a helluva run for his money if Jesse Jackson had been governor of South Carolina. Jesse Jackson won the primary in South Carolina, he should go back and run for governor. Amass a record and then come back. He's still young. But you're never going to become president of these United States based on just what you think you can do. Anybody can project what they would do, it's just when they start asking questions about your record. Jesse has the magnetism, he grabs people, he's got enough of the mystic in him -- more so than Hubert, in the sense that he can bring in the religious and evoke emotions in people.

I myself don't believe that Mr. Jackson is going to do anymore than what he has done already, and as of this recording today he's just lost in Pennsylvania, which I think is about what he's going to do from now on. Of course, the blacks have every right to vote for him. I get a big kick out of the fact that some of the whites say that the blacks are voting for Jackson only because he's black. I want to say, "Why are you voting the way you are?" They never think of the fact that they are

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subconsciously are voting white. That's okay. I. think the blacks have every right, also the Irish or the Catholics did to vote for Kennedy, or anyone else to vote for anyone. If you can get enough votes, fine, do it.

My own personal feeling is that Jesse Jackson is doing a valuable job for this democracy of ours, because he is a sort of a stalking horse. He is stalking out a position and making it possible for black politicians who will follow him to be creditable candidates, particularly Reverend [William] Gray in the House -- he's also a reverend -- who's staking out a record as a very good Budget chairman. A lot of people were voicing doubts because he's a reverend and a black to head up a committee. More of these stereotypes are dropping, more and more, the same way they are about women. Before long we're going to be voting for people strictly on the basis of their record, and not on race or religion or anything else. I think that's a beautiful thing. Jackson is doing us good in that. He is making it possible.

In an ironic sort of way, he has suppressed any kind of racist remarks that might be made about Dukakis. Whereas it has only been a short, short twenty-five years when my brother went to Roanoke, Virginia, to work, as a young stock broker, and was denied admission into one of the exclusive clubs because he was a Greek, and they did not allow "people of color," as it was put to him, to be members of the club. In this particular club they had

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designated all the Mediterranean nations as "people of color," so the Spaniards, and Italians, and everybody else were not eligible, and they maintained that. It's been such a short time, I keep trying to tell some of the Greeks. In fact, some of the Greeks themselves were raising the question in that period in the sixties, about racism and whether the Greek Orthodox Church would admit blacks. I was pointing out to them that the blacks a great portion of the Greek church in Africa. Oh, the Orthodox church has the Russians, and the Syrians, and the Armenians, so we're all in the same boat. But we can't seem to see it. Everybody's got their own opinion, and if you've got any problems, just blame it on the other race, don't blame it on yourself.

RITCHIE: You obviously think very similarly to the way Hubert Humphrey thought.

TAMES: Oh, yes.

RITCHIE: And that would have made you sympathetic to him as a photographer. Could you have been official photographer for a president with whom you weren't sympathetic, say a Nixon or a Reagan?

TAMES: Yes. Yes, I could have, because I have enough pride in my work, and also I have had the experience of working with people that I didn't necessarily agree with. Some of the people that I have photographed were to the right of Ghengis

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Khan! You know Pat Buchanan, for example. I told Pat Buchanan that other than mother I think I've probably read more of his columns than anybody. I hate him -- I mean, I don't hate him, I just don't agree with his views, but I read him, just like I read [Jeane] Kirkpatrick, and her views. I read them because I want to find out what the hell they're thinking. But it's hard going for me.

I would have done a creditable job, depending on how much they felt about me. See, also you have to feel at ease with the person. I don't know how Reagan felt about me. Nixon, though, he was not above putting his arm around my shoulders and talking on a very close basis, because I knew him since he was a member of the House. Many a time he'd say, "It's not you, George, it's the New York Times." No, in my heart I believe I could have done so, because unlike writing, where you can shade your opinions, photography is pretty straight forward.

It's only now, under the new techniques, the digital stuff, my God you can conjure up pictures. You can take the head of one person and put it on the body of somebody else. I've seen cover pictures on U.S. News and World Report of Mrs. Reagan and Mrs. Gorbachev sitting there, and they're looking like they're talking to one another, yet one was made in Moscow and one was made in Washington and the digital machine put the same background, put them in the same chairs. One of the great photography books, A

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Day in the Life of the United States, and the cover picture was a digital composite, where there was a shot of a cowboy coming across a ridge in the moonlight and they were too far apart, so they just simply put them in the digital machine and brought them together, so they were able to fit the format. They used to say that we were conjuring up pictures and we were recreating, or faking. I used to say, "No, we don't fake anything, I recreate." If I see a scene and I can make it better, I shoot it. If I think I can make it better by moving the subjects into a spot within the area they are, just to get a better light, or dramatic light, I'll use it, because I'm controlling the situation. Now, with this digital mechanics you can enhance something, you can correct it. Joe McCarthy did a very sloppy job of splitting a picture of Stalin and...

RITCHIE: Millard Tydings.

TAMES: Tydings, remember that thing? He made it look like Tydings was cocking his ear and listening to Stalin. And it was so poor, because you could actually see the line. Yet the implication was there. Today you can do that and put him in his pocket. Talk about propaganda potential.

RITCHIE: Because people, when they see a photograph, think that it's real.

TAMES: Oh, of course.

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RITCHIE: Because a photograph doesn't lie.

TAMES: It doesn't lie, but it does lie. And I think it's going to be doing a lot more of it. We have to be very careful with what we're doing, computer enhancing, computer this and computer that, everything is computer.

RITCHIE: Going back to the official photographer idea, is it the job of the official photographer to make the subject look good, or is it to give an honest rendition of what's going on?

TAMES: Both. First and foremost it is to record an honest photographic history of the presidency, and if while you're doing this there is a beneficial fall-out for the president, say if he's running again and he wants to use your pictures, of course. You always shoot with that in mind, also: does it look good? Does it show how the president very forcefully did this, or was very emotional in doing that? Sure, it works both ways. But I approve of the idea of an official photographer. Just think if there had been an official photographer for Lincoln, what a wonderful series of pictures you would have of that man and what he went through.

RITCHIE: By contrast to the official photographers in the White House, the official photographers on Capitol Hill are sort of reduced to doing what they call "grip and grins" -- photos of senators shaking hands with their constituents.

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TAMES: That's correct.

RITCHIE: Why do you think the two jobs are so different?

TAMES: Well, for one thing, Lyndon Johnson is responsible to a great extent for the official photographers being on the Hill. He wanted pictures of himself with some of his constituents, and he set up the Senate photographers. Then of course the Republicans, not being dumb and observing what a good thing this is, went along with him. It's all being paid for out of the federal treasury, and it's a set-up where they are photographing individual members as part of the advantage of being on the in. And of course, "grip and grin" type of pictures are the meat and potatoes of this business of ours. They're the type of pictures that are going to be used by the local media. So they are doing a job. They are not paid to be creative or innovative. Their job is to make the senator or member look as good as possible, and then to take into consideration how his constituent looks when you make that "grin" shot. But as far as actually recording history, no. It's an almost impossible job. Not an impossible job, but a difficult job, particularly the staff that they have. They literally would have to have twenty-five photographers call clicking away at a terrific pace, with a staff backing them up, so they could file some of this stuff that they were conjuring. A lot of it would be superfluous.

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RITCHIE: You mentioned before about photographers being cut out, and losing the flavor of things. It strikes me that Congress and the Capitol are so diverse, there are so many corridors and back rooms. The people who aren't on Capitol Hill don't really get the flavor of it, and it's very hard to capture it in general. But I found this one picture in your files which to me has a wonderful feel of Capitol Hill, the man in the chair in the corridor. It's a very different shot, and I wondered how that came about?

TAMES: Well, I was walking by the Senate and heading toward Minority Leader Baker's office, and I spotted this man sitting in one of those overstuffed chairs just off the Senate floor, smoking a cigar, puffing away very contently. I recognized him for a lobbyist, so you literally he was stalking, waiting for a member to come by, at which time he was going to buttonhole him and make his little pitch. I've forgotten who he was lobbying for, but it was pretty prestigious, and it was not something to be ignored. I have his name somewhere. Either way, I caught it and I just shot it. I thought it was a very interesting type of picture.

RITCHIE: Well, you hear the expression the "corridors of power," referring to politics, and here's the corridor with the marble statues of famous senators of the past, and the Minton tiles on the floor, and the overstuffed chair and a very well.

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dressed man just waiting for the powerful to come down the corridor. Somehow that picture just expresses what I see walking casually through the Capitol Building, that you don't see in the newspapers and the magazines.

TAMES: No, no. The good lobbyist doesn't advertise himself. He didn't pose for me. He was there waiting and it just the juxtaposition of the sunlight, everything there just blended into this picture and gave me something out of nothing. I shot it with the idea that if I ever needed a picture of a lobbyist, this would be a good one.

RITCHIE: There are certain things in the Senate that portray themselves readily, you can portray a filibuster with someone speaking, but lobbying is a difficult art to capture. It's hard to distinguish a lobbyist from anyone else.

TAMES: And also lobbyist has become a dirty word. I don't agree with that. If someone is expressing his viewpoint, or is representing a group's views, that's fine, even if I disagree with him. I think the tobacco lobbyists are some of the most aggressive and well-informed and innovative in fighting issues and blocking issues that would be detrimental to their industry, smoking. Yet I don't object to them doing their thing up there. Sooner or later everybody's going to realize that what they're proposing is wrong. It might be available for a while but sooner

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or later it's going to go down. In this democracy, it takes a while for consensus to develop on most any subject. I heard somewhere that there's nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come, and I've seen this in various ways on the Hill, where issues that have been thwarted for years and going nowhere, all of a sudden, wham, they're through. Like LBJ and the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. They'd been hanging around for forty years, and all of a sudden he grabs it and whamo it goes in. He couldn't have done it four years earlier. The time had come, the people were ready. I think this applies across the spectrum.

RITCHIE: Did you find that lobbyists were good sources of information as to what was going to be happening? Were there any who were helpful to you?

TAMES: Only the ones who wanted publicity for their own projects. The right-to-lifers, say for example, made a point of calling me up or passing the word down by whispers or gestures that they were going to do something grisly, like have a fetus in a jar and leave it in a senator's outer office, someone who was a proponent of abortion, as a demonstration against abortion. Or they were going to try to present him with a fetus, those types who have been lobbying the Hill have come around. And of course the potato lobbyists, the lobster lobbyists, the navy bean lobbyists who once a year would serve free bean soup to the members of the

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press. Right along with your lunch you got a bowl of bean soup, whether you asked for it or not, and every senator got one in the Senate Restaurant. Or, like Senator [Allen] Ellender used to once a year have a luncheon for the press of crayfish gumbo, that he made himself, which was very tasty. He was promoting Louisiana. That's lobbying. Of course, he was a senator, he could do it.

Then you had ice cream lobbyists, and one to beat all lobbies as far as I was concerned was the pasta lobby, who had about ten cooks. They took over the House Caucus Room, and they were conjuring up spaghetti, linguini, spinach pasta, you name all the pasta dishes. They had pasta with lobster, pasta with fish, pasta with everything including -- and this really turned my stomach -- pasta with chocolate. They had this chocolate spaghetti type of dish. It was soft and they dipped strawberries into it and topped it with cream and gave it to you on a dish. Well, my stomach can take most anything, but this was one that I could not quite get down. But I will say that I enjoyed their pasta New Orleans, and they had hundreds of people going through, senators, congressmen, all sampling. That's a good example of lobbying.

The National Association of Retired Persons has got a very strong lobby, and is becoming stronger all the time. There are altogether about twenty-seven million people who they represent, I'm a member, because of their cheap insurance and so forth. They are expounding the views of the Social Security set. Of course

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when I was not on Social Security I was against raising Social Security, but now that I'm a beneficiary, I like some of the things that they're saying. But I'm also realistic and I believe that the budget should be balanced and that we should make an effort towards it, and I'm willing to have my benefits cut percentage-wise to the overall cuts, so we may go down that path. We're all lobbyists after our own fashion. One of the things that I discovered over the years is that the number of people who consider themselves right-wing, upstanding, free enterprise, gung ho for the American way, and so forth, are the biggest receivers of subsidies, who are sucking harder on the public tit than any other person. Yet when you point this out to them, they recoil in horror. Of course, my subsidy is necessary for our way of life to continue; the other people should be cut. From your own point of view, everything looks so different.

When I was very young, I was always looking at these old reporters hanging around, hardly doing their job, I would say, "These old folks should be retired." Until I reached their age. Then I suddenly realized, oh, my, no, I'm too valuable to go. So it's a different view, it depends on which perspective, which angle you look at things, which end of the telescope you use.

RITCHIE: The definition of a special interest is it's always somebody else.

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TAMES: That's right. It's always "special interests." I'm honestly amazed at the various organization that keep springing up in this town. It's reached such a point that every member of the House and Senate, particularly the Senate, has to have an aide who focuses on one primary problem. Abortion, he has a specialist on abortion and right-to-life who answers all questions regarding that. Then he has one on labor, foreign policy. And all of these people feed into him. It's becoming more and more complex to be a member. That's why I keep favoring this "don't repeat" reform: go in, do what you can, make your pitch for what you think is good for the country, stay twelve years and go home, we've done your bidding. Let the next person come in. Well, they say, "you're advocating a very inefficient form of government." I say, "show me a more inefficient form of government than a democracy." If you want an efficient form of government, then you'd have fascism. I would say communist, but I think they're worse off than we are. I mean, the fascists, the Germans and the Italians made the railroads run on time, and you never lost your baggage at the airport, and you got your checks. Of course, you couldn't think. If you like that type of life, and human beings can adapt to anything, after a while you like what you're doing, you don't have to think. You just go home and plunk yourself in front of the TV, or your walk around the block.

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RITCHIE: Have you noticed in the years that you've been covering Congress that lobbyists are more open about what they do now?

TAMES: Yes, very much so. For one thing, they can't conceal it. They have to register. They have to list their expenditures, their contributions. Wasn't it a lobbyist who coined the phrase that an honest politician is one who stays bought when you buy him?

RITCHIE: Now, you mentioned that you took this picture of a lobbyist in part so you would have a picture. Do you think in terms of categories, that you want to cover your bases in case a paper or magazine wants a certain picture...

TAMES: Sure. You're always thinking of new stories, and constant stories, and they keep coming up. After all, news by and large is what is dug up or conjured up by the reporter or the photographer. If you see something that makes a picture, you shoot it, then you submit it. It could go as a floater with no story with it, like this could go as a floater, you just set it up as a floater.

RITCHIE: Or do you get requests from the paper from time to time that say, we're running a piece about lobbying and we need a photo?

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TAMES: Oh, yes. Many times. I'll say, "I have something in the files I think will do that." I'll tell them what it is, that way they'll go back and get it. And invariably it would be much better than what I could go out and shoot immediately. Then, of course, other times I see this, and I say, "Well, if I'm going to do a lobbyist, a particular lobbyist, I will then remember a pose that I saw them in, or a lobbyist, not necessarily the same one. I'll say, "Did you ever sit in that box by the window there, that comes down very dramatically in the Reception Room of the Senate, sitting over there with a senator like I've seen others do? Go over there and sit down." He'd go over and sit down and I'd make a picture of him. Either by himself going through some papers, or with a senator, it makes a very interesting shot.

Yes, you copy constantly. They say, "We're doing a story on the Speaker." Okay, you've made the Speaker four or five times, then what do you do? I brought in Tip O'Neill one time into the Rayburn Room, with that big, beautiful painting of Rayburn in the background. I made a picture of Tip O'Neill, with his big face and with this big picture of Rayburn sort of leaning over him, to get the feeling of Rayburn and to get something different. You're constantly thinking.

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See, the easiest thing to cover is a war. You just try to keep yourself alive and watch what's happening. You get pictures of destruction, and you've got good stuff. Look what's coming up out of Israel with the Palestinians. The Palestinians are reacting to their dead, and you get good pictures of wailing women, and bodies all over the place. That's about it. You've got more stuff than you know what to do with.

RITCHIE: We're getting a good story here.

End Interview #4

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THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTOGRAPH
Interview #5
Monday, May 16, 1988

RITCHIE: You mentioned that there were women who were strong influences in your life.

TAMES: Oh, yes, I think that women have had strong influences on politicians' careers as well as my own life. My wife and my daughters, of course, all had a great bearing on me. And that's why I'm a little apprehensive about Jesse Jackson and his campaign. I keep looking to see his wife next to his side, parrying off questions, and answering questions, and considering what her views are, what she's going to contribute to this would-be presidency. Of the women that I have been acquainted with, as far as politicians have been concerned, who have had a great influences on their husbands, Mrs. Frank Church had great influence, and Mrs. [Tom] Connally the old Texas senator, had great influence.

As I see them, the women who have had the greatest influence on the presidency, were Jacqueline Kennedy, Rosalyn Carter, and Mrs. Ford. I did not know enough about Mrs. Truman, she always stayed in the background but we kept getting hints that she was

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trying to straighten out the old man. Mrs. Roosevelt was in a category all to herself, because the length of the presidency of her husband was so long. The first years that the president was in the White House, I was not aware of the president or Mrs. Roosevelt. When I first became aware of her in 1939 and '40, by that time she had been in the White House eight years, nine years, and as a result her immediate family for all practical concerns were gone from the White House and she was becoming more of an independent thinker and doer. The president was involved in his own world, and so she went out and did her thing. I think she would have made a great president on her own, like Mrs. [Margaret] Thatcher. Those were the two women who I think of in my lifetime who I've considered capable of governing.

The other women were great influences, but I never thought of them as presidents. Mrs. Kennedy made wide use of the presidency, and helped her husband in many ways. Her sponsorship of art, redoing the White House, the numerous little things to bring a touch of family life into the White House, the snow scenes in the backyard -- we talked about that earlier.

RITCHIE: Did any of these women ever comment to you about the photographs you took of their politician-husbands?

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TAMES: No, not a one. Not a one ever mentioned it. In fact, I received a note from Mrs. Reagan when I made a picture of her, and I was giving her direction on how I wanted her to pose. She liked the result, and she sent back a picture of me making a picture of her, and I've got my arm extended and I'm telling her what to do. She wrote on it, "See, George, I do know how to follow direction." I thought that was very nice on her part.

No, the women never commented one way or the other, except Mrs. Kennedy commented on the picture that I made of the president, "The Loneliest Job," because that was such an outstanding shot at that time, and subsequently, that she commented on it.

RITCHIE: What was her comment?

TAMES: That it was a very good picture, that it depicted the awful weight of the presidency, and that it would live forever. I kind of hope it does. I know it will long after I'm gone, the way it's hanging now in the Kennedy Library in Boston, occupying a whole wall.

RITCHIE: What was the story behind that picture?

TAMES: I was doing "A Day with the President." President Kennedy operated differently than any other president that I have been acquainted with, in that his personal office, the Oval

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Office, was open. All the doors leading into the president's office were open at all times. Very few times did they close that door. I can't say all the time, but every time I walked back it was always open, and I went back many times when there wasn't any photo op, or I was just going back to see the president. I'd make a request to see him, and he always was very gracious about giving me some time. One of the things about Kennedy was he appreciated the power of the media, and to my mind was the first president who really knew how to use us. He used us. We thought we were using him, but he was using us as much as we were using him.

I'd come up with an idea for a story, or a picture suggestion, or I was doing a story about someone and I wanted to photograph him with that person. So I was wandering back and forth quite open. The door leading to Mrs. [Evelyn] Lincoln's office, which was off the president's office leading towards the Cabinet Room, was always open, and days like today, a beautiful spring day, the doors leading out to the patio were wide open. They weren't even screened, so quite a few bugs would come in. The door leading off the office into the hallway was open, and the door going to his private little hideaway, which as you go into the Oval Office was on your right. A little room is back there that very few people know about. President Eisenhower had it set up as a little bedroom. After he had his heart attack, every time he felt tired he'd just go back there and lay down. Those doors

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were always open, so anyone walking in the hallway could stick his head into the president's office and see him, and if he wanted to speak to him he could, or if he just ignored him he'd go on.

Well, while doing this "Day," I got me a chair and I sat just inside the president's office, right smack up against, practically, the door going to the Cabinet Room. So I was in the office, but as far away from his desk as I could possibly be. Sometimes, if a visitor was coming in that I thought might feel uneasy with me in the room, I would pick up my chair and go into the other room, but the door was always open. I'd keep sticking my head in to see what was going on.

President Kennedy's back was broken during the war, when that torpedo boat of his was hit by the Japanese destroyer. As a result of that injury he wore a brace on his back most of his life. Quite a few people didn't realize that. Also he could never sit for any length of time, more than thirty or forty minutes in a chair without having to get up and walk around. Particularly when it felt bad he had a habit, in the House, and the Senate, and into the presidency, of carrying his weight on his shoulders, literally, by leaning over a desk, putting down his palms out flat, and leaning over and carrying the weight of his upper body by his shoulder muscles, and sort of stretching or easing his back. He would read and work that way, which was something I had seen him do many times. When I saw him doing

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that, I walked in, stood by his rocking chair, and then I looked down and framed him between the two windows, and I shot that picture. I only made two exposures on it -- we were very conservative with our film. Then I walked out of the room and stood there for a while, then I saw him straighten up. I went in again and I photographed him straight up, for a different shot, from the back, then I walked around to the side and photographed him profile, right and left.

He had a copy of the New York Times, he was reading the editorial page -- and I have that print right here, I was looking at it just the other day. He looked over and he saw me. He hadn't been aware that I took that picture from back, but he saw me when I moved to the side there. He glanced over at me, and he said: "I wonder where Mr. Krock gets all the crap he puts in this horseshit column of his." Apparently he was much upset about Mr. Krock's column that day. So that was the occasion of that picture.

Also, I'd like to point out that he had such an eye for pictures that when I took the make-ready of that magazine -- this picture was on page three of a three page photo lay-out and story that ran in the New York Times. Tony Lewis wrote the story on "A Day With the President." On the cover we ran a picture that I made from the Rose Garden looking into the president's office. That was the first time that had ever been done. I think McGeorge Bundy was sitting with him, I don't remember anymore to be

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honest. Anyway, the Times used that on the cover of the magazine. So I went in on a Thursday to show him the make-ready. I showed him the cover, and he said, "Very nice, very nice." Then he flipped over and started looking at the pictures. He flipped one page over. We had pictures timed from early morning until when he left at night. When he got to the third page and his eyes were wandering down he spotted this picture. It was a small size, right in the center, looked like it was three inches by four inches, or something like that. He put his finger on it, and looked over at me and said: "This should have been on the cover." It struck him right off that he knew that was an important picture and that it was not being played properly. That's the history of that shot.

Oh, by the way, Ted Kennedy today wears the same kind of brace because of his back injury in that airplane crash. One day I walked in on Ted and he was doing exactly what the president had done. But he was in the offices of his committee, Judiciary, and he was leaning over a desk with his hands stretched out like his brother had done. It's incredible how the Kennedys all look alike from the back. You add forty more pounds to President Kennedy, and you've got Teddy -- from the back.

RITCHIE: It's a remarkable picture. You wouldn't guess from looking at it that he was reading the newspaper.

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TAMES: Well, whether he was reading the paper when I made the picture I don't know. He had a stack of other documents he was working on. He would work that way, turned around standing. So whatever he had been working on when he was sitting, he just simply took it and reversed it. He had his papers there, but when I went back in after making that first shot -- it must have been three or four minutes before I went back in -- whether he was reading the paper at the time that I walked in on him, I don't know. I know that I have repeated that story many times as a joke, and for impact I've always said he was reading the editorial page of the New York Times, particularly when he made that comment about Mr. Krock. When you repeat this story to other newsmen who have known Mr. Krock, they just break up. So I did that as sort of a joke, but whether he was actually reading it at the time I took it, I don't know. But I know he was reading the Krock column about three or four minutes later, when I walked back in the second time.

RITCHIE: You had also mentioned, when we talked on the phone the other day, that reading the first interview reminded you of your breakfast with Richard Nixon.

TAMES: Oh, yes, that was the interview that I had with Richard Nixon when I came to Chicago from Indianapolis. In our first interview, did I mention that I went out there with [Robert] Taft or not?

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RITCHIE: No, you just mentioned that you had met Nixon on the street and chatted with him, but you did not mention Taft.

TAMES: Well, see just before that I went west for the Republican Convention in Chicago by traveling with Taft, who was the front-runner for the nomination, and literally had it wrapped up. Everybody kept saying that he had it wrapped up, just as much as they say George Bush has it wrapped up today. And he had just as many delegates, according to his own count, but there were some disputed delegations in the South. There were some rules under the Republican party, there was some gray area there, but by and large he had them. I went west with him and we ended up out there in Indianapolis. After we finished that rally, the next morning very early we took a train -- Taft took a train to Chicago. Here he was the front-runner and there was no media with him. Maybe one or two people who met him in Indianapolis and covered him there during that big rally in that very hot, hot ballroom at the hotel. We were just incredibly sweating. He was in his shirt sleeves, wiping that bald head of his.

We came aboard the train and I was with him. There were three or four reporters and he told them he would see them later in Chicago. They went off to the dining car, and he looked over at me and said, "Come on in." So I sat with him all the way to Chicago -- here I am a shirttail photographer. I made a couple of pictures of him working on these tally sheets he had. He kept

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adding them up and adding them up from every direction and he kept saying, "I've got them." "I've got them." Somehow the figure 1604 sticks in my mind, whether that was how much he needed, or that's how many he had, but he said, "I've got them here." He said, "I think I'm going to get the nomination on the first ballot." We arrived at the Union Station in Chicago, only to be met by this huge throng of young people, young college students, all carrying banners and shouting in unison: "Thou Shall Not Steal." Apparently the Republican credentials committee was going to meet the next day to take up the question of Taft's southern delegates, which were critical to him.

Somehow it had been plotted by Eisenhower's supporters and it was a very successful campaign. Whatever the merits of Taft's claim, he ended up losing his delegates. As a result he never got it. They were so close in delegates that I think the southern delegation between winning the nomination and losing the nomination, and Taft lost it strictly on that "Thou Shall Not Steal" campaign. He never got over it. For the year that he lived after that, increasingly he was less active politically and very hurt. He took the rejection of his party very hard, in my opinion, and deservedly so, because if anyone fought the battles in the vineyards of the Republican party it was "Mr. Republican" himself, Mr. Taft, there was no question about that. And here was this upstart of a general coming along and stealing the

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nomination. I think Adlai Stevenson would have whipped Taft, so the Republicans in their wisdom -- the same damn way that Democrats in their wisdom today are not about to nominate Jesse Jackson -- knew they would lose going away.

RITCHIE: Did you tell Nixon this story when you met him?

TAMES: Oh, yes, coming back to Nixon -- see, there in my Byzantine Greek way my mind just goes drifting, as my wife always says, I go drifting -- what happen was that after this incident, Ike got the nomination or it was a foregone conclusion. Then the question who was going to be Ike's vice presidential nominee. Well, I was just coming out of the Drake Hotel when a cab pulled up and out dumps Senator Nixon. I said, "Hi, Senator, how are you?" And he said, "Hi, George, what's going on?" "Not much," I said. "I think it's pretty well wrapped up and Ike has got the nomination." He said, "I figure as much, but who's got the vice presidential nomination?" I named about three names, but the one I concentrated on was Henry Cabot Lodge. I said, "Lodge is the logical one. He's got the inside track on that, and rumors seem to be that he's going to be it." Nixon said, "Yeah, well what are you doing now?" Nothing, I said. He said, "Come on and have breakfast with me."

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So we went down and sat, Nixon and I, and had a long breakfast, in which he probed my mind as to what I had been hearing, and what was going on, and what everyone heard. I just frankly talked to him the way we're talking now, based on what I had been hearing, to make conversation in a friendly way. I've always wondered if at that moment whether he knew that he was being considered or not, and that he was just testing me to see what rivals he might have, or whether it came as a complete surprise to him a little later. I've always wanted to ask him. One of these days if I can get next to him somewhere I'm going to ask this one question, whether he knew at that moment that he was under consideration for the vice presidency.

RITCHIE: What sort of a man was Nixon, especially in private in a meeting like breakfast, or when you saw him as a senator or vice president?

TAMES: Well, you know I first met him as a member of the House. I first made some pictures of him early, around the Tidal Basin, riding his bicycle with his wife, around cherry blossom time.

RITCHIE: I've seen that picture.

[174]

TAMES: I wasn't the only one that made it. I think AP or UPI did too. I think we were there, we spotted him, or he spotted us, and made a point of coming to us. So it was a good picture, very nice. Then I got to know him very well during the Communist hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee, because he became a favorite member for us photographers, who were limited in the different types of pictures we could get. Getting a witness talking got to be pretty boring after a while. But Nixon was a probing member, and we could always sense that he wanted his picture made, and would get into a situation that would oblige us and further himself. What we would do was to try to get him into any kind of situation.

I remember one time sliding along the dais, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, and leaning over to him and whispering: "Bring the witness up to you." Then I backed off. What I wanted him to do was to bring the particular witness, who was showing off some particular papers, up to the dais, so then we could get a picture of Nixon looking at the papers with the witness there. The chairman was Parnell Thomas, a big guy, he was a gross looking fellow. Anyway, we would ask Nixon to do that, and he would do it. We'd all stand by, and in about five minutes, or ten minutes, the first thing you'd know, Nixon would ask this man to come up. And when he did so, snap, snap, everybody concentrated on the shot and we made it, and it would make the front page the next day.

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Personally, he was very likable, always willing to stop and have a cup of coffee and inquire about us. Then when he found the Pumpkin Papers and all the hullabaloo, we knew we had a live wire here. He was the Joe McCarthy of that period, always looking for the cameras and always willing to spout anything that would get your attention. Then Nixon ran against Helen Gahagan Douglas for the Senate, and it was such a vicious campaign that my own liberal feelings were offended. But at the same time we remained very good friends. To this day I think we are. I don't see him that often. But Mrs. Nixon was very nice, and the children were small, two and three years old, I saw them around. I never campaigned with him, but later as vice president he would have us over to his house. I remember one particular occasion where one of his daughters put on a tutu and did a little ballet dance for us. She was in the second or third grade. It was very personal.

I found that even though I instinctively wanted to be anti politically, you know that in your business you're supposed to be neutral: shoot and observe what you see. But it's practically impossible not to try to improve on situations when there's someone you favor, and not take a person who you disfavor and make him look bad, but only shoot what they're doing at that moment

[176]

without trying to editorialize a little bit and improve situations. The light might not be as flattering as it would be if you move him fifteen feet away, but you just don't bother to move, you just shoot it the way it is. But by and large I have no personal complaints about Nixon.

In his later years, I kept thinking Nixon was hitting the bottle a little bit. He would make me promises and never keep them. Particularly when I was president of the White House Photographers for three years, and those three years he never came to our annual dinner. I was looking forward to presiding over a dinner with the president of the United States, and he made a point of telling me the second time that it wasn't me or the New York Times but there were circumstances that he just couldn't make it that year. But he put his arm around me as I was leaving his office and said, "I'm going to be there at your next one." So I made full plans for the next one. At that time I had brought the five members of the original twenty-eight that had started the White House Photographers Association in 1921, who were still alive in 1971. I don't think but one is alive today, if not they're all dead. They came in to see the president and we presented him with a gift that we had for him.

I took my camera and said, "Here, Mr. President, you make a picture of the five surviving members:" And he did. We published that picture as publicity. The next thing I got the idea that

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since he was coming the next year, that we were going to make a real to-do about it. We added a special photo category to our annual contest. It was called "President's Class." Not presidential, we had that ourselves. But only presidents were eligible to enter the "President's Class." And since we had only one entry, that's the picture he made of the five, that he won. In so doing, he was to receive a plaque stating this, like all other winners, and he was to receive a gold dipped -- we didn't get him solid gold -- White House news photographers pass, with his name on it, signed by me as president, making him a member. We were to present that to him first, then declare him a winner. We had this all in our annual, listed the whole event.

At the same time, I thought since this was my swan song as president after three terms that I was going to do something special on top of all this. I went to Tiffanys and had them engrave a dozen cuff links, 18k gold cuff links, with the White House on the cuff links and the date, 1971, and our initials, for which Tiffany, if I recall, charged me something like eight hundred dollars for the dozen cuff links. I kept one for myself; I gave one to my vice president; one for every officer in the organization; and one for the chairman of the dinner committee. And we had Nixon's ready to give to him. Needless to say, he didn't show up. So to this day, if you want to see his cuff links, his plaque, and his citation, I'll show them to you. I

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have them downstairs. I figure if that bugger wants them, he can come to my house and get them. I'll present them to him right here in my living room, but I'm not going to deliver them to him!

RITCHIE: I remember very vividly the White House Press Photographers' annual exhibit that they put up in the first floor gallery of the Library of Congress.

TAMES: Oh, that's a great place.

RITCHIE: When Nixon was president, they had some of the most uproarious pictures of him. They somehow managed to catch him in some of the funniest looking positions. For a man who wanted to be photographed, he somehow seemed uncomfortable and unnatural in so many of his poses. What was it about Nixon?

TAMES: Of course, his was a face that cartoonists had a field day with. It was those jowls and that sloping nose. He was conscious of that, and the very fact that he sweated so profusely. You could get pictures of him with the long lens with the water just rolling off of him. I wonder if sometimes if he had the same type of mind that I have, in the sense that it races so that your mouth cannot keep up. As a result, you stumble. And you have that detached look in your eye, where you are actually hearing your mind, which is way ahead of your mouth. That's what I thought he was doing. As a result, you could see that he was hesitant. It's a good way to study the people, through that lens.

[179]

RITCHIE: To go to a Congressional photograph, as we were coming up the stairs today I was reminded again of one of my favorites among your photographs, which is the picture of Frank Church and John Stennis in a committee room. It's a wonderful picture that says so much about senatorial chairmanships, and power, and generations. What was the story behind that picture?

TAMES: There's a situation again where I doubt if any other photographer will ever have the opportunity to repeat. It's just ask to go backstage, so to speak, and photograph members in meetings, and do it without causing a tremendous amount of flack. This picture was made at a meeting of the Democratic Senatorial Steering Committee, who were then deciding and voting on chairmanships for the new Congress. It was the Congress before Church ran for president, which had to be the nomination that Carter got, which had to be twelve years ago. Since he wanted to run for president, he wanted to be chairman of a committee that was going to put him in the forefront and make his name known even more so than it had been. So he wanted to be chairman of the Senate committee to investigate the CIA. That was being talked about, and he thought that would be a very good platform for himself and his political ambitions.

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While he was in this Steering Committee room, with all these senators milling around, he was lobbying for the job. He walked up to Senator Stennis, who was a powerful member of the Steering Committee, and also a very powerful senator on the floor to this day, who by the way some members were touting to be chairman of such a committee to investigate the CIA. They thought that particularly southern senators would look with favor on this, plus the fact that they thought that Stennis had the judicial background, being a former judge, to bring a little bit more weight than Senator Church or anybody else. See, there were several people besides Church who were running for the position.

I had just photographed Church making the same request of another senator. Then all of a sudden he spotted Stennis and he walked over and said, "Senator, I am seeking to become chairman of the committee to investigate the CIA, and I'm soliciting your vote." With that, Stennis drew himself to his full height and looked down his nose, with that patrician type of air, and said, "Senator, I will not vote to investigate the CIA. However, if my views do not prevail, I shall vote for you for chairman." So he did get Stennis' vote. It's always been my observation, too, around the Hill, is never take any vote for sure. You always ask a person to vote for you, even though they've told you before that

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they were going to vote. You ask them again, and you make damn sure that they know and are coming around to vote for you. Never take any voter or vote for granted.

So that's how that came about. It ran on the front page of the New York Times, which prompted a letter from Margaret Mead, the anthropologist, who wrote me. She wrote: "I have been an observer of the political animal all my life, and this is the finest example of the species." I've always treasured that picture and that quote.

RITCHIE: It's a wonderful moment. Again, we talked the other day about the difficulties in capturing the legislative process, but here you have personalized it in those two very different figures. If it hadn't have been for the combination of the young, handsome looking, and older, patrician-looking senators, the picture wouldn't have had the same impact, but those two faces up against each other said so much.

TAMES: The pleading of Senator Church. You could see his deference to Senator Stennis.

RITCHIE: And Stennis' chin makes its own statement.

TAMES: Yes, being a politician himself, Senator Stennis realized that Church would make a good chairman.

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RITCHIE: The Senate is such a verbal place that it seems as if another battle that a photographer has to fight is how to capture a verbal institution in a picture, a non-verbal way. That picture did it.

TAMES: See, you can only shoot in so many places. And when I showed up, there were very few places where we could shoot: outside the Capitol, special committee rooms, never on the floor. I have photographed senators on the floor in the forties, but without the Senate being in session. I've done the same thing with the House, even as late as the Nixon era. But you are never allowed to work the floor, you can't shoot from the balconies. I told you how I tried when Kennedy was assassinated, and they took my film.

Did you ask me what made a great photographer? I think that question came up down at the Smithsonian Associates when I gave them a lecture about three weeks ago. I immediately said, "I'm not a great photographer. I've been a lucky one, just as lucky as Eisenhower was that World War II came along -- otherwise he'd have retired as a colonel. History would never have had more than a footnote on him, the fact that he was an aide to General MacArthur." If there was one thing that distinguished me from my colleagues, and I do consider about fifteen of them in this city

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to be my equal -- none my better, but my equal -- that none of those fifteen have the sense of history that I bring to this business, and the views that I have. That makes a difference.

It's one thing to shoot something by blind luck, and another thing to shoot something knowing that what you are doing is a footnote -- and sometimes a big, big step -- in the notes of history. You can see that in this house, with all this stuff: that pile of Truman negatives over there that I rescued, that the Times was going to throw out because they didn't have any use for them anymore. Too bad that people like yourself were not around at that time. We could have saved a lot of history. They threw out glass plates going back to before World War I. Incredible destruction.

RITCHIE: Tell me, with your sense of history, and your fifty years of watching the Congress, how would you say that Congress has changed over the years? What's different about the Congress now than when you first started going up there in the late thirties and the forties taking pictures?

TAMES: It's become more and more show biz. More and more playing to the eye of the TV camera, which is not a bad situation as far as I'm concerned. However, when you start deciding how you're going to appear on the tube, it takes away a lot. That's why I think it would have improved the Senate by limiting senators

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to two terms only. I mentioned that once before. You know that you are only going to be in for two terms consecutively, then if you want to come back you've got to make a record for yourself to be reelected. I think they're playing too much Hollywood. It's reflected in their outlook.

RITCHIE: Well, you had some flamboyant senators in the forties, like the Vandenbergs and the Connallys, who were conscious of their image and posed for photographs. Were they all that different from the ones who are running out looking for the television cameras now?

TAMES: Well, in those days you could count on one hand the people who were like that. Today it takes both hands and your toes. That's the big difference. The young ones coming along are polishing their images and not trying to appear the buffoon. Tom Connally of Texas used to put on some of his best acts on the floor of the Senate, in his populist views. I remember one time when they were debating the price support for cotton, I was there watching him and the whole Senate was laughing. Connally was walking up and down in the well area describing the poverty of the poor cotton farmers who literally had to hold their pants because of the holes in them when they walked down the street. He grabbed his pants, and he was a massive man anyway, and he was walking around with his hand shoved up his butt practically. That was flamboyant.

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I think one good thing about TV has been that statements made by the senators on the floor today are carried on TV and they no longer can rub them out of the Record, so that there's no mention of them anywhere. The beautiful English, Shakespearean prose of some of the senators in the Record belies their actual deliverance. What a difference some of them made! Bilbo could never have gotten away with some of the remarks he made on the floor, because they would have been carried by TV and you could not have ignored it. They would have to be put in the Record, instead of the whole Senate unanimously agreeing to drop it. You can't do that.

Did I mention my idea about the president being invited to debate? Well, I think the members of the Senate should have only two consecutive terms. Members of the House should have six consecutive terms. Twelve years for the House, twelve years for the Senate. Then they can go out and come back. That is a reform that I think would eliminate a lot of problems coming from money being generated to run for campaigns that cost millions and millions, every year getting higher and higher, because you know you're not going to run the next time and it's up to the other fellow. This also creates a vast pool of ex-members who know how government works and they will be able to guide from the outside, that's been my feeling. I also thought that as a compromise on the parliamentary system, I've thought about this for a long time,

[186]

that the Senate should be empowered under a two-thirds votes of the members present and voting, to request the president of the United States to come down and debate the issues of the day. That to me would be a tremendous improvement. See, by having a vote of two-thirds of the members present and voting you just can't get a group to suddenly jump up and say we want the president to come down and talk about this. They have to think it out.

This would accomplish two things, you could test the president, how he thinks on his feet and what his answers are, and so forth. This would also eliminate a lot of those press conferences, where questions are being shouted at him by media personnel who are making a name for themselves by badgering the president, and then saying they're doing it only because he won't hold press conferences. Sure, he won't hold press conferences, but I think you just say that he doesn't hold press conferences, don't start yelling at him, particularly this president, who I'm convinced at times does not hear the question. I find it now, I'm seventy years old coming up and my hearing isn't as good.

We used to laugh at Eisenhower for not being able to hear in one ear very well. We caught on early and we used to get some of those great expressions on his face by asking him to do

[187]

something. I'd say, "Mr. President would you do ba de ba do ba do?" And he'd say "Hah?" Then he'd cock his head and open his eyes and just tilt. I find myself tilting my head, and words do run together and mumble.

So it's unfair, but there should be a lot more communication with presidents: They should do, if they possibly could with this man, the way that Jim Hagerty did with Eisenhower. He put Eisenhower in a press conference every Wednesday, every Wednesday, to such an extent that after about two months of this, a delegation of reporters went in and said, "Make him shut up. That's all he's doing is talking, and we're just going crazy writing what the hell he's saying. Just cool it." That was from one extreme all the way to this man. He's never made a pretense of being an intellectual. He's never made a pretense of having a mind that was quick and agile and could answer in a superfluous sort of way some of the -- for a better word I'll say scatological questions. I feel embarrassed by my colleagues, and I just turn my head away and say, "Oh, God, not this! Is this what we're meant to be?" They say, "Well, that's our democratic tradition." Yes, I don't say don't print what you want, or what you feel. You can even print downright lies, it's been done. But don't censor.

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RITCHIE: Speaking of what to print, and what to censor, having been associated with the newspapers all these years, do you think that the Congress has been well reported by the press, the Times and other papers and the media?

TAMES: Yes, in particular the New York Times. But at this moment I have detected a trend in the Times to put less emphasis on the committee hearings, which are the bread and butter, and really where most of the action takes place on the Hill. They only pick and select, whereas at one point they were saturated. However, I would have to qualify that by saying that the moment the Times started doing that a new industry was created that does it. You have the Congressional Quarterly and your special regional bureaus, including one that was established by an ex-writer for the New York Times, who have reporters assigned on the Hill to report on each state. They also assign reporters for each subject. So they are writing, and they are reporting back, but it's being reported on a local basis and not on a national basis. When papers like the New York Times start deciding that certain hearings are not worth covering, or not worth the print, their readership is not interested until they develop it. But by and large yes.

By and large the Congress has been covered fairly and objectively. Particularly by the New York Times, and I have read quite a few papers in my time. You know, the Washington Post has

[189]

a great reputation and is making a lot of money, but it still doesn't touch us. They're behind us. They follow us. Every once in a while they'll have a story or something ahead of us, they'll jump on it. They always pride themselves on first jumping on Watergate, but we knew it. We were on the story from the beginning, but we considered it more of a local break-in. I'm sure that the Post thought about it that same way, at least at the beginning. You were going to say something?

RITCHIE: I was going to ask you who you thought was the best Congressional reporter during your career. Who really captured the flavor of it in print the way you did in pictures?

TAMES: Oh, if you want to do it that way it would have to be in poetic prose, and that would have to be Russell Baker. He covered the Hill with the eye of a poet; and he did great work. Tom Wicker did a good job. Who was the one who was such a great friend of LBJ's?

RITCHIE: William White?

TAMES: White! White did a very good job. I used to read all of his stuff. Several of the New York Times reporters have covered it more than adequately, but I can not conjure them up by name at the moment, thinking back. Of course, a political commentator who has never been equaled was Mr. Krock. Scotty Reston will never be forgotten.

[190]

RITCHIE: What kind of feedback did you get from people like Krock and Reston, who were heads of the Washington bureau? How did they respond to your photographs, and how they fit into what the Washington bureau was sending to New York?

TAMES: Well, Scotty Reston was the first bureau chief to really become enamored of the photograph. He was aware of what the camera could do, but more importantly he was in a way envious of my entree because of that little box. He could not get into some of those places that I got into. He always used to make a comment, he'd say, "George, with that little box you're getting into some places and doing the things I can't do." I'd come back and tell him in sort of a general way, or if I had permission to I'd repeat, what I had heard or seen. Mr. Krock just thought that pictures were a nuisance. The written word was all. Sure, I've got his Memoirs right here. In fact, I read them again just before I started mine. His is sort of a first version of Hendrick Smith's The Power Game. He relates his experiences with the figures of his time, and the power plays that took place, but they were nothing compared to what's going on today. The country is just the world capital and things are just happening here.

We never had to worry about the Japanese after we whipped them once, now they're whipping us and we're trying to figure out a way of getting back at them. I don't know if we ever will. With my experience with the Japanese as makers of cameras, and how

[191]

they snuck up on the Germans, as unassuming as possible, in a quiet way, making superior goods, and then slipping them in slowly so that they did not cause alarm, until it was too late. Now, the Leica and the German optic industry will never catch the Japanese at the rate they're going. The same thing applies to our automobiles. I doubt if we will ever be able to capture back that market that we have let them get here. As far as economics are concerned, I think they are going right down that same path. The Japanese are smart enough to let us have just enough so that we don't rebel, but at the same time keep us on the string. That's exactly where they've got us right now.

We're just caught in a Catch-22 situation. We ask for them to take up the slack and start paying for their own defense, and the Russians on the other side are starting to yell: we're going to cut back, you don't have to do it. We tell the Europeans...that's one thing else about Mike Mansfield. If Mike Mansfield and I talked once, we talked a hundred times on the need to bring our troops back from Europe. This was twenty years ago that we first started talking about it. He said, "Let us set a time limit, let us say we're going to do it. I say, do it in five years, but if you say do it in twenty-five years, and we compromise on fifteen," he said, "at least we've got a cut off date so the people in Europe will know that fifteen years from now all our troops are going to be out." All this talk about committing ourselves, that

[192]

the Europeans know we're committing ourselves because we've got a lot of troops there, is a lot of crap. If it's to our interest to commit ourselves, we're going to commit it. And if it's not to our interest, we never will. The same thing applies to the European countries. We can no longer count on them as friends simply because we're handing out money, or we have a nuclear umbrella over them. Let them do it on their own. If they want to face the Russian bear, or if they'd rather be red than dead, that's their prerogative. It's not up to us to say, "No, you should be dead rather than red." I think they should go and get out. I don't mean just pack up, but say, "We're going to leave in five years." Give them ten years! Look, we've been there fifty now. How much more do we do? Do we stay there like the Roman legions, and then have our own troops become more European than they are American?

Earlier you heard me say that I'm the same liberal Democrat I've always been all my life, but these are not Democratic statements that I'm making now. I read somewhere that one of the French philosophers, I believe it was Voltaire, who said that if a person is not a liberal at the age of sixteen they have no heart, and if they are not a conservative by the age of sixty they have no brains. I'm just wondering whether I'm acquiring brains! Well, anyway.

RITCHIE: But you haven't lost heart, either.

[193]

TAMES: No, thank God for that.

RITCHIE: Well, it's been interesting for me to see the Congress from your point of view, through the camera's lens. There's no one who comes anywhere close to equaling your record in terms of...

TAMES: Continuous service.

RITCHIE: And the people you have known and had a chance to photograph.

TAMES: You have to remember also, I keep referring to fifty years. This will be fifty years when my book comes out. Actually I started in 1940, so it's forty-eight years to the present time.

RITCHIE: Well, even longer, because you've said that you watched the Capitol Dome from your bedroom window as a child.

TAMES: Oh, yes, but I'm talking in terms of coverage. Listen, the Capitol Dome was my early imprint. They say that birds and ducks and animals imprint on humans if they see them first, and they get to think they are humans. A donkey raised with giraffes thinks he's a giraffe, and a midget raised with the giants thinks he's a giant. Maybe in retrospect some of the midgets in the Congress today consider themselves giants simply because they are occupying the seats that were held by the giants.

[194]

It's a very interesting institution. Nothing like it in the world. The Israelis like to think that they are like us, but they are not. Also their self-interests are different, their form of government, although patterned on ours, suits their unique views. Of course, what we are today, I'm sure the Greeks were not thinking of as a result of their form of government, however for their times they had the answer. I think for our times we have the answer. Like Churchill said, this is the worst form of government ever created by man, but it's the best so far we've come up with. If that's the case, then I think we'd better watch our step, and watch what is happening. History has to be very, very careful, particularly with these so-called "kiss and tell" books, a lot of self-serving horseshit is being dished out. I was very pleased to read in the Post today, one of the columnists was pointing out that in Don Regan's book he had some glaring errors as to fact. He described the President's inaugural in '81 as being cold and blustery and overcast and rain and so forth. Hell, it was a beautiful day. Maybe he read the wrong horoscope!

Well, it's been a very interesting conversation again.

RITCHIE: Thank you.

End Interview #5

Acheson, Dean, 62-63
Aiken, George (R-VT), 72, 116
Apple, Johnny, 69
Armed Services Committee (Senate), 29
Associated Press (AP), 31, 49, 124

Baker, Howard (R-TN), 9, 46, 73, 129
Baker, Russell, 189
Barkley, Alben (D-KY), 64-65
Bilbo, Theodore (D-MS), 4-5, 59
Boyd, Bob, 67
Brady, Matthew, 63
Harry Bridges, 89-93
Brooks, Jack, 14-15
Bush, George, 54-56

Cancellare, Frank, 62-63
Carlucci, Frank, 97-98
Carter , Jimmy, 105-106, 143
Carter, Rosalyn, 162
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 179-181
Church, Bethine, 162
Church, Frank (D-ID), 179-181
Civil Rights, 4-5, 18, 99, 155
Congressional Quarterly, 188
Connally, Lucile, 162
Connally, Tom (D-TX), 11, 60-61, 184
Crowe, William, 97-98

Democratic Party, 5-6, 128, 145, 192
Democratic Steering Committee, 179-181
Denson, John, 35
Dirksen, Everett M. (R-IL), 11-13
Dirksen Senate Office Building, 112
Dukakis, Michael, 131, 146

Eisenhower, Dwight D, 10-13, 106, 140, 165, 171, 182, 186-187
Ellender, Allen ( D.-LA), 156
Evans, Mike, 1-4

Foreign Relations Committee, 20-21, 58, 92.
Ford, Betty, 162
Fulbright, J. William (D-AR), 20-21

Gray, William, 147
Green, Theodore Francis (D-RI), 20-21
Griffin, Henry, 31

Hagerty, James, 10, 187
Halleck, Charles, 11-12
Harris & Ewing, 106-107
Hart, Gary (D-CO), 60
Herran, Harold J.T., 25, 32
Hoover, Herbert, 2
House of Representatives, 4
Hull, Cordell, 12-14
Humphrey, Hubert H. (D-MN), 66, 105, 141-146

Inouye, Daniel (D-HI), 15

Jackson, Jesse, 146-148, 172
Johnson, Lyndon B. (D-TX), 18-21, 43, 100-105, 130, 135, 152, 155, 189

Kefauver, Estes (D-TN), 116
Kennedy, Edward M. (D-MA), 168
Kennedy, Jacqueline, 42-46, 162-164
Kennedy, John F. (D-MA), 42-46, 66, 78, 130, 163-169
King, Martin Luther, 141
Kirkpatrick, Jeane, 149
Krock, Arthur, 40, 69, 169, 189-190

Lewis, Anthony, 167
Lobbyists, 153-160
Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr. (R-MA), 53, 172
Long, Huey (D-LA), 17
Long, Russell (D-LA), 116
Lugar, Richard (R-IN), 92
Lyons, Sam, 82-84

MacArthur, Douglas, 37-39, 64, 182
Malloy, Mary, 119-120
Malmedy Massacre, 29
Mansfield, Mike (D-MT), 72, 116, 130-131, 191
Markel, Lester, 96
Marriott, J. Willard, 6, 26-28.
Martin, Joseph, 13, 28-32, 59
McCarthy, Joseph R. (R-WI), 139, 150
McClendon, Sarah, 114-115
McEvoy, Tom, 34, 50
Mead, Margaret, 181

New York Times, 9, 37, 39-40, 48-50, 66-70, 73, 78, 80, 86-87, 90, 93, 95-100, 104, 112, 114-117, 125, 136, 139-140, 143, 149, 167-169, 179, 181, 183, 188-190
Nixon, Richard M., 53, 66, 148-149, 169-170, 172-178, 182
North, Oliver, 14-15, 37

Okimoto, Yochi, 104-105
O'Neill, Tip, 160

Patterson, Eleanor Cissy, 44
Patton, George, 64
Pearl Harbor Investigation, 13-14
Press Galleries, 111-115

Radio, 16
Reagan, Nancy, 149, 164
Reagan, Ronald, 76-81, 144, 148-149, 194
Regan, Don, 194
Republican Party, 128
Reston, James "Scotty", 69, 189-190
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 163
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 1-2, 7-9, 17-19, 21
Russell Senate Office Building, 56

Salinger, Pierre, 104-105
Sarbanes, Paul (D-MD), 92
Scatti, George, 50
Sherrod, Robert, 32
Shuster, Al, 87
Sidey, Hugh, 20
Smith, Hendrick, 190
State Department, 29-30
Stennis, John (D-MS), 72, 116, 179-181
Sulzberger, Arthur, 68

Taft, Robert A., Sr. (R OH), 169-172
Tames, Frances, 85, 142
Taylor, Glen (D-ID), 145
Television, 16, 40, 58, 107, 125-131, 134-137, 183-185
Thomas, J. Parnell, 174
Thomas, Ron, 85-88
Thurmond, Strom (D/R-SC), 145
Time-Life, 2, 20, 25, 32-36, 50, 66-71, 110, 118-120
Truman, Bess, 162
Truman, Harry S (D-MO), 3, 9, 17, 40, 58, 109, 183
Truman Committee (Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense

Turner, Ted, 126
Tydings, Millard (D-MD), 150

Vandenberg, Arthur (R-MI), 11, 154
Vietnam War, 19-20

Wallace, Henry. 145
Washington Post, 13, 35, 71, 115-116, 188-189, 194
Washington Star, 35
Webb, James, 98
Wells, Sumner, 14, 84
White, William S., 104, 189
White House Press Photographers, 176-178
Wicker, Tom, 69, 189

• • Program), 3, 9, 58