a general proposition, I supported our troops in Vietnam and the right of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations to make the decision to be involved there.
Early in 1968 I got a job offer to manage a congressional campaign. The Republicans had a candidate who needed some help running in the 2nd District against the popular five-term Democratic incumbent, and a friend in the governor’s office called to see if I’d be interested. It sounded like something I’d enjoy doing, and it paid well, a thousand dollars a month as I recall. Taking the job would require delaying my preliminary exams—the comprehensive tests that had to be passed before starting a Ph.D. dissertation—but I saw no harm in that. When I approached the powers that be in the political science department, however, they were far from enthusiastic. It wasn’t just that I would have to delay the prelims, one senior professor said, but that working in a campaign would send the wrong professional signal. “If you get involved in politics,” he said, “you will not be taken seriously by political scientists.” That gave me a lot of pause, since I was pretty sure that real-world experience would be an asset whether I was doing research or in the classroom, but what did I know about how the academic world worked?
I decided to turn down the campaign job and return to school fulltime. Before long, however, another interesting opportunity presented itself, and this one had the political science department’s approval. Senator Joe Tydings, a Maryland Democrat, had contacted the university about establishing a fellowship in honor of his grandfather, Joseph E. Davies, who had been born in Wisconsin and had served as FDR’s ambassador to the Soviet Union. Tydings wanted to make the fellowshippart of the American Political Science Association’s congressional fellowship program, and the political science department suggested me as the first recipient.
Years later, after I became vice president, one of the trustees of the Davies Foundation sent me the letter of recommendation that the chairman of the political science department wrote to Tydings, which noted that I was married and the father of a two-year-old daughter and described me as “a very bright, hard-working, wholly personable, and attractive young man of twenty-seven.” The chairman quoted Aage Clausen saying that I was “the most cooperative, capable, and helpful assistant” he had ever worked with. When I read that letter thirty-seven years later, what struck me most was to think that in 1963, just five years before the letter was written, I had been sitting in a jail cell with my life pretty much in ruins around me. I’d gotten a second chance, and I’d made pretty good use of it.
Senator Tydings was scheduled to come to Madison in April to speak at a rally on behalf of Bobby Kennedy, who had entered the Democratic presidential primary for president and was slugging it out with Hubert Humphrey and Gene McCarthy. I attended the rally and afterward met the senator in a bar on State Street, where we had a beer and a long conversation. He offered and I accepted the congressional fellowship that would take me to Washington, D.C., for a year.
More than thirty years later, when I was vice president, I attended a dinner at the University of Maryland where former Senator Tydings, now a trustee, was among the guests. I made a point of going over to thank him for what he had done for me all those years before. He was gracious, but seemed a little puzzled. Later he told a writer that he didn’t have the slightest idea what I was thanking him for. He didn’t remember our meeting on that cool spring night in Madison—although I have never forgotten it.
CHAPTER TWO
Anybody Here Named Cheney?
O n a muggy Friday afternoon at the end of July 1968, I got behind the wheel of our black Volkswagen and headed south out of Madison. My goal was to drive to Washington and rent an apartment for Lynne, Liz, and me
Early in 1968 I got a job offer to manage a congressional campaign. The Republicans had a candidate who needed some help running in the 2nd District against the popular five-term Democratic incumbent, and a friend in the governor’s office called to see if I’d be interested. It sounded like something I’d enjoy doing, and it paid well, a thousand dollars a month as I recall. Taking the job would require delaying my preliminary exams—the comprehensive tests that had to be passed before starting a Ph.D. dissertation—but I saw no harm in that. When I approached the powers that be in the political science department, however, they were far from enthusiastic. It wasn’t just that I would have to delay the prelims, one senior professor said, but that working in a campaign would send the wrong professional signal. “If you get involved in politics,” he said, “you will not be taken seriously by political scientists.” That gave me a lot of pause, since I was pretty sure that real-world experience would be an asset whether I was doing research or in the classroom, but what did I know about how the academic world worked?
I decided to turn down the campaign job and return to school fulltime. Before long, however, another interesting opportunity presented itself, and this one had the political science department’s approval. Senator Joe Tydings, a Maryland Democrat, had contacted the university about establishing a fellowship in honor of his grandfather, Joseph E. Davies, who had been born in Wisconsin and had served as FDR’s ambassador to the Soviet Union. Tydings wanted to make the fellowshippart of the American Political Science Association’s congressional fellowship program, and the political science department suggested me as the first recipient.
Years later, after I became vice president, one of the trustees of the Davies Foundation sent me the letter of recommendation that the chairman of the political science department wrote to Tydings, which noted that I was married and the father of a two-year-old daughter and described me as “a very bright, hard-working, wholly personable, and attractive young man of twenty-seven.” The chairman quoted Aage Clausen saying that I was “the most cooperative, capable, and helpful assistant” he had ever worked with. When I read that letter thirty-seven years later, what struck me most was to think that in 1963, just five years before the letter was written, I had been sitting in a jail cell with my life pretty much in ruins around me. I’d gotten a second chance, and I’d made pretty good use of it.
Senator Tydings was scheduled to come to Madison in April to speak at a rally on behalf of Bobby Kennedy, who had entered the Democratic presidential primary for president and was slugging it out with Hubert Humphrey and Gene McCarthy. I attended the rally and afterward met the senator in a bar on State Street, where we had a beer and a long conversation. He offered and I accepted the congressional fellowship that would take me to Washington, D.C., for a year.
More than thirty years later, when I was vice president, I attended a dinner at the University of Maryland where former Senator Tydings, now a trustee, was among the guests. I made a point of going over to thank him for what he had done for me all those years before. He was gracious, but seemed a little puzzled. Later he told a writer that he didn’t have the slightest idea what I was thanking him for. He didn’t remember our meeting on that cool spring night in Madison—although I have never forgotten it.
CHAPTER TWO
Anybody Here Named Cheney?
O n a muggy Friday afternoon at the end of July 1968, I got behind the wheel of our black Volkswagen and headed south out of Madison. My goal was to drive to Washington and rent an apartment for Lynne, Liz, and me
Similar Books
