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Fla Rep 5AB
Subject: Harold Stayman D. Soles
Interviewer: P. Klingman
Date: 5-22-75
Place: Palm Beach, Fla.
S: Machines.... 15"Ve 0 Lo 6 4
K:
K: Right. I think we can use both machines and See what we get.
We'll get one between the two of us, no matter what happens, and...see how it goes.
There....
S: I might have to stop for a call...they're a couple that may come through, otherwise
we'll be sail, sail through.
K: No problem. Why don't we just go ahead and review right back from the beginning
certain things, and start right from your earliest work as a Republican. ...So
when and why did you become a Republican?
S: When Barry Goldwater...was running for the presidency, of course, I had been a
registered Democrat in Dade County, but...my mother is very active in the Republi-
can party in Pennsylvania and always had a tendency to vote Republican in the major
elections. Of course in the, in the local elections there wasn't really a party
down there in those days, that was 1964, '63-'64. In any event, Barry Goldwater...
made a good deal of sense to me and I just decided to become as active as I could
in support of his candidacy. So, I volunteered to work in the precincts for him
and learned that...in order to get started...I, I should...visit with some of the
people who were in the Republican, young Republican leadership in Dade County. It
turned out there was a meeting that week and I went down and attended it, and... met
iob rpse5 J i who was president and a real active fellow, dynamic type
person, and many other people. The young Republicans in Dade County at that time
a bit
were older than the, than the young Republicans in most areas of the country, but
they used this vehicle...since they were able to operate this club the way they
wanted to and most of them were the leaders of the, of the Goldwater campaign in
Dade County....I guess after my first meeting, of course, I joined and...became
immediately the founding editor of a little newsletter that we had for the club,
and worked for Goldwater in the precincts. ...I couldn't change my registration
until after the election, but the day that it was possible to do so I was there
to change it, and I've been a...Republican ever since that time.
K: Okay. In your work in the precincts, in the '64 Goldwater campaign, how success-
ful was the problem of trying to campaign for Barry Goldwater in Dade County?
S: Well, of course, Barry Goldwater lost the county significantly. There was an awful
lot of fear...about the man among the...senior citizens, and the minority groups
were really...oh gosh, there were some precincts where the vote count was something
like 740 to three, it was that, it was that extreme in, in some of the black areas
in...South Beach, tremendous...black voting against Goldwater. We had the feeling
that...he, he had a chance to win, though, certainly e It he
should carry Florida,...we were surprised that he didn't and that of course gave
us our, our real interest in this party because...we tOenght that...the reason that
Barry Goldwater did not carry this state was not because of a philosophy, a differ-
ence in philosophy, rather because of a lack organization, and...that's...
what, what it really turned out to be. So we felt that...what he was saying made
a lot of sense to people in this state. As a matter of fact, if he was running
today, I don't think there'd be any question about him carrying this state.
K: Um, hum.
S: ...When we look at what George Wallace has done without...the real stature and, and
...and...depth of...of Goldwater....
K: Let me ask you a, a question. At the same time that...Goldwater was running for
president, of course, orle U-iu was campaigning for governor, and Claude Kirk
was campaigning for senator against Spessard Holland. Did you...engage in any of
this activity?
S: No, we...we were in...we, we met the other candidates at one of the Young Republican
conventions where they were all our guests and iU\\l was there and Kirk
was there. Kirk made a big impression on the Young Republicans because he's...very
affable and...a great speaker. Ho l was, was pleasant enough, but
rather bland, by comparison with Kirk, and Kirk appeared at our meeting at Key
Biscayne with...his wife. Fir is- Mrs. Kirk is a charming woman...great
pretty, very attractive and vivacious lady. We liked Kirk a whole lot, and we
didn't really have a great dislike for Holland. Philosophically, Holland was never
\*** bOod 4 O6 '# 6S~if T6M ch~Oy'ir h r'A that I can see. And there
really wasn't CQH\ interest in the governor's race.
K: Ur, hum.
S: ...We were really caught up in national politics, and it was Goldwater you know....
K: So there really wasn't a slate campaigning going on in '64 in this, for the, from
the Republican point of view, at least, in Dade County.
S: No, not in Dade or, or from what I can see, throughout the state...
K: A MiJ\re 'AS-k<4-
S: The organized political groups, the Young Republicans the k) _O*'~_ _A_ '
Republicans, obviously supported the ticket, but...the workers, the volunteers,
the people with the pins and working...you know on the bumper stickers, and all
that, were people \d\ \ ~ Goldwater all the way.
K: Okay, let's get down to this impact of Goldwater's defeat on the state Republican
party, because this seems to be the place where the impetus lies. There's this
feeling coming out of the, the defeat of Barry Goldwater in the state, that he
shouldn't have lost, that there were reasons that he lost, and I'd like to see if
we could nail that down to some specifics, if we could, in '64.
S: Well, we...we were very disappointed with the results of the election, and...we had
a Young Republican meeting a week or so after the election, and keep in mind that
we're minority, minority, minority party and...had no offices whatsoever in Dade
then, or hardly ever since. So....-
K: This Young Republican meeting a week after was at Dade County?
S: Dade County, Dade County meeting. And it was, it was really a strange thing because
...we expected a crowd of about forty to sixty, which is our usual range, and nearly
200 people were there, a huge number, far, far beyond the, the space and of all ages.
And everybody came out and they came up to the Young Republican meeting because the,
the senior people were disgruntled and disillusioned, and they felt that...the youth
had...the enthusiasm, had the drive, and we had one excellent meeting that evening.
We Sr o, talked about, we realized what our problems were. We decided that we had
to stay involved. We decided that we really needed to, to become involved in the
position of leadership in the party. That it was impossible to...to, to accomplish
very much without having the titles, and having the positions. And so, from this
club, we spawned...a lot of political careers.
K: Okay. It seems to me that two weaknesses in the party structure that you probably
would've been directed against. One would've been with the regular state party
Chairman \ nPj0 AI1oincW-0 aA.AtTor FCi-; rCld I Cr that power structure at that
point in time, and secondly, weaknesses in the Young Republican state organization
itself, the Federation of Young Republican QJ6 Can you amplify either one
or both of those?
S: Yes, the...the senior party...was almost a joke because...one faction had control,
complete control of the party for sixteen or eighteen years, and...the, the current
leadership, at that point, I think they had been in power three years or so and they
hadn't had a meeting in all that time, not one meeting. No voting, yes, no, or
anything, just never got together which was something of a puzzle to us. As far as
the Young Republicans were concerned, we had a variety of clubs and philosophies in
the state. There were some clubs that were play clubs, and they were some clubs
that were working clubs, like the one in Dade that I mentioned to you. It was
probably the finest political organization I've ever been associated with on any
level.
K: Where else were you strong in the state, the Young Republicans?
S: Central Florida, and Orlando. We had a good club on the west coast, a good club in...
K: Pinellas County?
S: Yes. Jacksonville had a large club, but as I say, it was more of a play club, but
nevertheless, we had, we were very serious in our own organization. We had...
active campaigning for these party offices, the state chairmanship, and so forth.
We decided that...the first thing we had to do was to get the...get control of the
leadership of the Young Republicans so that we could be, you know, pursue our goals
in a very serious manner. It would give us...credibility, it would give us a plat-
form from which to speak, it would give us a platform from which to build. So we
decided that we would have a candidate for the state chairmanship of the Young
Republicans, and make that step. We felt that...we would try and assist the Florida
Federation of Republican Women a little bit, as much as we could, so that they
could bring about the change. And I want to point out, that people that had these,
pardon me, positions of leadership in theseS, in the federation and party, were not
villians by any means, they were people who were good people. They were people who
were tired they were people who had been there for many, many years beyond their
prime and, and they...stayed on because they had a different philosophy. Their
philosophy was that they'd like to be big fish in a very small pond. We weren't so
concerned about what our size would be, but rather that the pond would increase so
we could build, you know, and elect somebody.
K: Even without a Republican party history, like I'm working on, it should've been
perfectly clear to you and the people back in 1964, that you were associating with...
this kind of enthusiasm, for lack of a better word, a grass roots movement. That
you wanted to rebuild a party in ih1'c eF-ose- There'd been something
which had been happening for a long time, there had always been periodically a drive
to reproduce. What made you think in '64 you could be successful?
S: Well, we had a...we had a great team in Dade County, a very unique team. As I was
saying, it's...it was the most outstanding group of people I've ever met. We'd have
a board meeting in that little club...once a month, and we'd sit around in a living
room or at a meeting room and, and come up with great ideas and we, we just didn't
know what it was not to succeed in them...internally. ...Sponsored a lecture with
John Stormer...who authored None Dare Call it Treason in Dade County. It was
a big success, and as we started to evolve ourselves in the mechanisms of parties,
we never lost anything. And so, it just added to our, to our confidence. We felt
that...that we needed to create a, a statewide organization, meanwhile, before the
election of the state chairman of the Young Republicans, and we formed a Young Re-
publican trust fund. That was the first formal organization.
K: Okay. Just to make sure, for the record, that we, we have gone dates in order, the
Florida Young Republicans meeting that you would've been working towards, the feder-
ation meeting for the Young Republican's Trust Club, would've been in May of 1965,
because the national convention was a month later in June, '65.
S: That's correct.
K: So when you formed this Young Republican's Trust Club...
S: Trust Fund.
K: ...Trust Fund, excuse me, the Young Republican's Trust Fund, and that is important
we get it correct, who was there?
S: Well, of course, that was formed before I was there even, and...Bill Dover, and Lou
Fry...I think Bill James was involved in that, Bill Shields from Fort Myers...Sue
Golden from Miami, i-D-ie#i-s, Robert Lyle from Miami, ....
K: About ten people.
S: Yes, uh, huh. About ten people. And...the organization, this, this was just a
paper thing. Everybody, there was no money, everybody paid their own expenses to
anything they ever went to. They used to meet about once a month or so up in...
Bartow, that was a convenient spot, and the trust fund was formed, and these people
felt that something had to be done, and the point was that they raise some money,
you know, to, to...to perhaps hire a field man or two.
K: This meeting in Bartow, which I believe you mentioned one time)was in a restaurant,
S: Yes, John's Restaurant.
K: John's Restaurant in Bartow. This implies to me, because of the location, that this
still was then being centered in central and south Florida. That you weren't
bringing into this trust fund people, at this point in time, or they weren't bring-
ing into the; trust fund, at this point in time, people from north Florida, the
panhandle...
S: No, we just, we weren't as...
K: 'SO it's a long drive.
S: Yeah, we weren't as acquainted with them. We didn't know of their zeal for this,
you know, we figured that there were some people out there that agreed with us. I
forgot to mention Fred Hagan, he, Representative Hagan was a member of this also, an
that
active charter member of the trust fund. ...We selected Bartow so t would be con-
venient for, you know, sort of...a halfway spot. But...the real..., the real power
of the organization came from south Florida, which was unusual, since there...
really not much...elected... You'd think it would come from Pinellas where they...
K: Exactly.
S: ...all the victories were, but...it didn't.
K: Exactly.
S: It didn't come...I don't remember whether we had anybody from Pinellas, off hand,
I don't think we did.
K: Not that I know.
S: There was a certain rivalry that developed between...Pinellas County and Dade County,
...which we'll probably get into as we go along, but...we, this was in, in the, late
in '64 and early in '65, so we, we were looking to hosting a...a major convention,
the National Federation of Young Republicans were going to meet in the Deauville, and
we had to work toward that. We had assignments on that which kept us going, kept the
organization active with this specific goal, and then we were concerned, as you said,
Mhy
about the main election. ...We met and discussed that in great detail. We were
looking for a candidate. I think the thing that was so good about the, the trust
fund concept and our whole approach with the Young Republican cause was that we were
very flexible when it came to...who would be the candidate. It wasn't one person,
saying, "I want to be chairman We sat together and discussed it all to
determine who would be the best, who'd be part of the best slate we could elect, you
know. So...we first, first thought was that. ...Our candidate was David Wells.
Turned out to be David Wells from Jacksonville. ...He was not a member of the trust
fund. I think it's important to remember that, because it does come up again.
K: Um, hum.
S: ...The trust fund'said this, that...the peopleH1iL,~ -_compose the trust fund would
support David Wells' candidacy, and after he would, he would be elected, our thought
was that...the trust fund would try to raise money to help support, financially,
the Young Republicans, so that he could have a field man, which we've never had
before. So that was the long-range thing.
K: At this point in time, excuse me for Ij fdTrr i .
s: P-___5
K: At this point in time, are you thinking in long range, you, either you personally,
or the trust fund thinking in long-range terms about what eventually transpires
in terms of the party as a whole?
S: Yes, we felt that the, the first step would be the...the Young Republican Federation.
And the second step would be the senior party.
K: So we are talking, to use Mr. Nixon's phrase, we are talking about a long-range game
plan.
S: Well, yeah. ...We were talking about that and we...and to go one step further, the
next step was to elect a Republican governor in 1970.
K: Um, hum. We'll, we'll talk about that as we go along.
S; Yes.
K Okay, Wells...is the candidate at the Florida Federation of Young Republicans, and...
becomes the chairman at the May meeting. And then, the following month, in June at
the Deauville Hotel, in 1965, the National Young Republicans Meeting occurs. Now,
two things interest me about the meeting. One takes place with an-issue in;the
meeting that you or somebody had, and I'd like some more specifics on this, with
Mrs. Maytag, and the other thing is the meeting itself. Perhaps maybe we should
talk about that to begin with, the rest....
S: Let's go back one step, because this, this Young Republican State Convention was
something else, but it should be pointed out that the opposition to David Wells was
Lou Fry.
K: Okay.
S: And...we had a slate of candidates that were elected when David was. We, we won
every, every seat, and defeated Lou. And Lou had been a...I mean is a very dear
friend of ours and...there were many of our, you know, we played with this many
times after that, whether we made, if we would be better off if we hadn't had Lou
as our chairman. I just wanted to put that in the record because we became very
close friends, much closer, much closer friends than we ever were with...with
David Wells, for instance.
K: But, Lou Fry was also a member of this trust fund.
S: Yes. That's the thing that....
K: So, somewhere in there, the trust fund issue of David Wells, somehow there's a
split that occurs beean FL ~
S: I, I'm just, I'm trying to recall, maybe Lou and Fred came on the trust fund a
little later. I'm not sure about that. I'm really not clear on this. But I,
I thought certainly that they were involved in the early stages. It could well
have been after, after his defeat. Lou gained a great deal of stature with this
defeat. He was kind of...used to winning everything, and it kind of taught him a
lesson in humility. And...he never lost anything after that. He never lost another
election after that particular one, because we became great allies and....
But coming down to the convention itself, we were at the national convention in, in
at the Deauville. It was a very successful meeting. We raised a good bit of money
for them here. We had a lot of workers. It was a exciting thing. Our candidates
for all the national offices, people of Dade County, I mean Florida supported, won)
o0 H ______ were elected. It was during this time that we did visit in, in, in
I
detail with Mrs. Maytag.
K: Before we talk about Mrs. Maytag...
S: Yeah. OKO,
K: ...was there, and this is purely a question for perspective, was there a discussion
between Florida Young Republicans and other...southern Young Republicans about...
the impact of Goldwater and..., I guess what I'm asking you is were there other
like movements, elsewhere going on?
S: There were. There were.
K: For the same kinds of reasons?
S: Yes, in Tennessee, and..., and...in, in...Carolinas. ...You must note that the
prevailing philosophy, the winning philosophy, among young Republicans for the
conservative cause, year after year after year they had bi-annual conventions
and it's...this conservaqJve group was known as the syndicate, and the...the...
liberal faction from Pennsylvania and New York, and sometimes California. They
were known as the gang-buster faction, but they, they vote and they'd never win,
they wouldn't win the elections, the, this conservative group T-H ConTro \( d .
So \ ,-- '." r. 'i, ,r,-" .* talk about it, but it was the, the Young Repu-
blican Organization was far more conservative than this sp p.n)_ ~ party nation-
ally.
K: Now, somewhere in the process of this meeting in June of 1965, you and some other
people went to see Mrs. Maytag.
S: Right. But Bob Creselius, it was a very simple thing. Bbb Creselius and...myself,
we were up night and day for days and days there at the convention, but we did
plan to see Marquita, and Marquita was...a great friend of ours. She was, she
supported the club and I sold her husband the outside back cover of the...of the
program book for $3,000 which was the biggest money we raised at the convention.
She was a good friend. Not, we weren't as close to her then as we became, but
nevertheless we, she was a, bee.me a great supporter of ours. So we took out time
to visit with her for lunch one day at the Robin-Hood:Inn, during, right in the
heart of this convention, and we had...two or three martinis_ I. l CL 00,.
aon- oo c Qoco o0-f *+he worit{is toerc or-
Crse .,TiuS prf d \ s 'm I doesn't drink very much. But, we
told her all about it, how it was going. She was very much interested, not only
in the state picture but nationally. She's very active in politics. And she had
some money that she was thinking about investing...in support of the Republican
party, because she was terribly dismayed, you know, with what had happened, and
she's a strong/onservative. So, we talked with her about this trust fund concept,
and she...it was at this luncheon that she more or less, made a commitment to us
that she would give us $25,000.
K: Was she unhappy with... CY. P:i crl,! 0 r\':. F 0 Fcir,,j0 Fr 0!%1. 'i
S: Oh, tremendously. Oh, yes, unhappy would be a great understatement.
K: Personally unhappy?
S: Oh, yes.
K: Was there a personality conflict?
S: Oh, yes, yes. They had a row over the delegations at the Senior Party...Conven-
tions before, in...in the past, and...Marquita's a brilliant woman, and she's,
loses patience, you know, with dull, you know, common folk, and...this party's
bep- lackluster. And she was, pardon me, she was very concerned about that.
K: So when you made out your plans over lunch at the Robin Hood Inn, you included
all the way to whic you saw would be the future steps. po''d Take.- o\i1r-
*if the senior party, and so on.
S: __That's it. We felt that we had the way to do it, that we, we could
do it. We could take over the party, and..._ we didn't know with whom.
Keep in mind there was no candidate. No candidate, we just thought we, we could
put somebody in that was fresh and imaginative. We were looking for certain
qualities in a person, and...we knew what they were, but the main thing was, how
And
do we do it, you know. we felt that with...that seed money we could get the job
done, or go a long way toward getting it done. It was not an easy task. It was
you know, -i, Ak+ t o 4- k\
K: You also discussed with Mrs. Maytag in this meeting an Cnti t .
S; Yes. That was going to be a, be a, the chief source of our fund raising. Other
southern states, particularly Alabama, and incidentally, Alabama was one of the
states I should've mentioned where the Young Republicans took over the party also,
under John Grenier's leadership. ...One of the first things we did was go up: to
Alabama and spend some time with him, learn a little bit about what they did because
they elected five congressmen, Republican congressmen, in 1964 where everything else
was in shambles. So, the idea was that the trust fund would publish an almanac
which would be a governmental guide and it would be...it would include perhaps
a hundred or so pages of advertising at a thousand dollars a page, which is tax
deductible item for business and would allow us to net seventy, seventy-five
thousand dollars. That would be money that we would use to fund the party. We're
talking now in terms of 1965 dollars difference. So, that was being done in other
states. It was being done in Alabama, it was done in other, other southern states.
-Ac
Z-f A great opportunity for the GOP to raise money in states where they never raised
any before. It turned out that...the tax advantages of that project soon disappeared,
and it made...it ruined the project. We couldn't do it. My particular role was to
become...exectuve director of the, of the Young Republican Trust Fund, and...to, to
do this almanac project.
K: Why were you available to do this?
S: Well, I wasn't available. I was working for the Southern Bell Telephone Company, bit
I like politics very much, and...I really was caught up in this Goldwater thing.
It was a crusade with us. And I guess, I really found myself in politics. I was,
you know, drifting along with the telephone company, not setting any records, and I
found...a position of leadership with the party. I started from standing still and
became, became known nationally, and became an official of the, of the Young Repub-
licans, and had an opportunity to visit other clubs, and to motivate people, and I
was really caught p with it. And I figured, if I could get enough to make the
mortgage payment and pay on the car, and just, just, and really it was an unselfish
thing. And...for both of us. The two people who gave up their careers to start
out in this. It was a very unselfish thing for both of us, because we, we surely
didn't get rich at all. We started with just a minimum amount of money, but that's
what it took to get the job done, you know. And, it was a hell of a job because we
went traveling all the time, and it just about ruined the personal life. But, but...
no, I felt that we could get the, that was part of the deal. And Marquita and I
are now very dear friends and, and she had confidence in me and, ...that was part
of the deal. She wanted me to do it. You know, if you go and talk, you have to
put your money where your mouth is. It's if you do it, we'll do it. And, and of
course getting Chuck le____ was a great coup also, because he had another type
of personality and, and great credibility.
K: Let's explore this. You become executive director of the trust fund.
S: Yes.
K: And your responsibilities were to start organizing Young Republican Clubs in the
thirty-seven counties of south Florida.
S: About thirty-three, thirty-four. Yes Ctt'tS yes.
7 1-
K: And, Mr-\iAru-S responsibilities were the top part of the state,
S: Yes.
K: Panhandle.
S: Yes.
K: But he was not being paid out of trust fund money.
S: Yes he was.
K: He was being paid with trust fund money.
S: We paid the money to the party. The state chairman, David Wells, submitted vouchers
and statements thae the trust fund paid him. Paid rent, and paid...Chuck's salary.
K: And your salary.
S: And paid my salary and my expenses.
K: All out of this $25,000q|Lars
S: Oh yes, sure. Our salaries were set at, I think Chuck was $8,000 and mine was
$9,000. So that's $17,000, and we...traveled in a very frugal manner. We stayed
at people's homes, we...gosh, you know, it's just a, and it wasn't a year that
we had to work, less than a year.
K: Did he have a title?
S: He was called executive secretary of the Florida Federation of Young Republicans.
K: And you were the executive director of the Young Republicans Trust Fund.
S: Trust Fund, yes.
K: Okay. Now this is a secret organizational plan going on, in terms of what yau
-foro d Alexander and Tom Brown in the senior party WOU d 0o knovl ,.
There was no knowledge, or was there knowledge?
S: No. There wasn't any real fear. Tom Brown had a lot of fear anyway. He's a very
suspicious person. He had good reason to. Everybody and his brother was after him.
...I happened to be in a crazy situation with this man. I, I visited him. I knew
what my purpose was. I like him, I like him to this day. In fact, he drew my will
a couple of, a couple of months ago, and he... He's a, I understand him, you
know, and I have affection for him, and I had lunch with him the day before we beat
him. You know, and I had lunch with him afterwards. So, I mean, I've kept...
friendship with the man. He's, he's just a victim of circumstance. If we had had
Tom Brown, if we were involved with Tom Brown, four years earlier, we could've made
a success of Tom Brown, because we would've surrounded him with people willing to
work, and we would've raised the money. It doesn't matter so much who's sitting
in that chair, I mean in my opinion. It's a matter of having somebody that's
willing to develop a team and, and then who presides at the meeting makes no dif-
ference to me, you know. I don't think he was as villainous as a lot of other
people, there was some people that just hate him, and hate Alexander. I, I do not.
dm4
I do.not feel that way about it. I never did feel that way about it. I felt that
the party was in...poor condition. I did not think that G. arcx i l Alexander
was a crook. I certainly didn't think that Tom Brown was, was dishonest at all.
I think he was inept as a state chairman, and he was. But, I don't think he's a
villain.
would 've
K: Can you describe forne, youstarted with this executive directorship, reorganization
of the Young Republicans of south Florida sometime beginning, I suppose, when,
October, did you start it? Or December, I should say? Somewheres in there? If you
met in June, ka'Y jk \
S: Oh, when did we get started with it?
K: Yes.
S: I think it was around September or October, yes.
K: September or October.
S: Yes, yes.
K: You would've started in.:..1965, this organization. Can you describe for me what you
did?
S: Yes...we divided the state as I, as I said. And the first thing we did was...first
major expenditure, we bought a couple of tape recorders. And we went...when we
went into our respective counties...we would visit with the state committee man and
state committee woman in the areas.
K: And you operated out of Dade County?
S: I, I operated out of Dade County.
?
a new
K: You didn't move or establish A residence some place else ?
S: No, I didn't have an office. Chuck's office was in Gainesville. We put, the Young
Republican Federation put an office up there, and...we didn't have an office. I
reported directly to Bill Shields, who was the chairman of the trust fund, and to
...Bill Goldberg, who was the, you know, really one of the top men in all of this.
So I would, my method of operation would be to go to a' county, before I did anything
at all, and visit with the state committee man, state committee woman, introduce
myself, tell them what we're trying to do, and that was build new Republican clubs.
I sat with them on their front porch, I ate with. them in their kitchen, I, you know,
visited with them in their car. I learned an awful lot about the make-up of that
state committee and the southern part of the state. If we found someone who was
rolely or
identified...yQai-4nae entirely with the machine, or wasn't flexible in their think-
ing, or, you know, really was, had other motives...we made notationsqf this. And,
we felt that...it would be necessary, maybe, to bring in new leadership. You under-
stand that the state committee's composed of a man and woman from each county in the
state. And in some counties we had six Republicans and some counties we had
60,000 Republicans, Each county has the same vote, two votes, a man and a woman.
We also visited with the county chairman. It took, was a time consuming thing, but
we prepared a little card on each person that we met. It had, you know, the high
points of their personality, their age, and everything else. They were very, very
senior people. Some of them were in their eighties, eighties. Most of them were
very outstanding, I mean, very dedicated, let's say.
End of Side 1, Tape 1
K: I don't want to make a conspiracy where one doesn't exist. But, in your traveling
around in these various counties, talking to these people, making value judgements
as to whether they were supporters of the old style of Brown and Alexander, or
whether they would be amenable to the kind of changes you were talking about, you...
were you still operating in secret, or were you telling these people what you had
in mind, specifically that the...?
we
S: Ah, it was a conspiracy. No question about it. It was a, it was a, had a definite
goal.
K: Then I shall quote you.
S: Yeah, there's no question about about it. And...we weren't in it for fun and games.
You weren't making a sacrifice of time, you know, on a lark. We were very serious
about it. We're very serious about everything we did, and...we were open minded.
We felt that...this was not going to be a, a young |u'l<. movement, ever. We
were going to seek compatible people of all ages. I mean, when it was over with,
we didn't want to sit and, and, and preside over a, a wreck, wreckage of the party.
There were several people there that are good people that we certainly wanted to have
part of it. And we, regardless of ages or geography, we tried to convert some
people, and we found people very positive. We found very few people,who were,
you know, brought up in one...in one cause so much that they weren't interested in
the good of the party. There were some personalities of course that, you know,
wanted to prevail, but, you must remember that we, there were three, three factions
now you see. There was the Young Republican faction, which wasn't taken too serious-
ly by a lot of people, like Congressman Kramer, Congressman Gurney, tet oO
por 0Tftr'per- G. Harold Alexander, or even Charles Holly, which was the head of
the second faction. Now the second faction, as you said, there was unrest in the
party in the past, and Holly was there. He was, he-was the champion of the, of the
dissidence they had in the past, and he, he almost became the chairman. He, you
know, had a big effort tobecome the chairman of the party four years earlier. And
he did it in...such a way that the others were just totally...you know, polarized.
K: I'm assuming that Charles Holly, for the moment I'm assuming that Charles Holly
was a close friend of the kind of dissidenee that Helene Morris...had with...
Alexander, say in the late '50's and early '60's. This was that group of, so
called, grass roots Republican dissidenee then, and here you were presenting your-
self as a third movement. Is that a fair characterization?
S: That's fair. Yes, yes that's fair. The...the major opposition was Charles Holly.
We were, we were...political..., you know, ...call it, well...it certainly was an
upset, to say the least.
K: Um, hum.
S: And it was an upset until the very last minute. I mean people didn't even realize
what we had, but we did our homework. And so, in many counties there were two or...
and, and at least two and sometimes three candidates for these state committee men
and women posts.
K: Let's explore that just to make sure that we have it fully understood. You're
suggesting that Charles Holly was a larger threat to your group for the state chair-
man than G. Harold Alexander.
S: Indeed.
K: Can you explain that? That doesn't make a lot of sense.
S: Well, the...we quickly realized that the Alexander forces...first of all, Alexander
and Brown were at odds, and so Alexander, Alexander didn't realize what had hap-
pened to, to the, to the team. The team he had probably blind disciples, x number
of them, but not enough to win this race. And, and Holly had done a lot of work,
he had built a lot of goundwork...in the past four years. He had people ready to
run. He had done his work there. He had candidates for for these offices in, in
many of the counties so that where there were Alexander people they were being
challenged. Our...it looked to us as though the Alexander, the Holly people were
going to win. We frankly felt and we knew Charles Holly, those that got to know him
a little better, we were, we were not willing to accept Charles Holly. We felt that
he did not have the qualities that we needed to have.
K: What kind of qualities?
S: We were seeking...I guess you might say three major things. We wanted an unscarred
personality to lead the party so that we could unite all of the factions. And we
needed someone who had enough money so that they would not be tempted or corrupted
by any of the power and...that could come, would come with the state chairmanship.
And we wanted someone who had no particular personal political ambition. We didn't
want the state chairmanship to be a stepping-stone to the governorship or to the
candidacy for the United States Senate or anything else. We wanted a technician
type of person, a person, a do-good type person. Holly wouldn't qualify in any,
for any of these three.
K: Can you shed some light on what might have produced a split between Tom Brown and
Harold- Alexander?
S: ...Harold Alexander's a very strong personality. He ran the party with an iron -
hand over the years. I only met the man twice in my life, and I enjoyed meeting
him_ h"gt)s q,, I'll never forget the time I spent with him. ...Cause I saw, I
saw something in operation which impressed me a lot. And I saw what he had, he, he's
the man that was loved by a lot of people, loved, worshipped by a lot of people in
his party, and out ofJfthe party, for that matter. So he had to have something
you know, good as they say in the lyric in the song,4om Brown, on the other hand,
was a, was a man that was close, his mother was close to G. Harold Alexander. Tom
is an attorney from Tampa. He is a soft-spoken, religious man. ...He is, he's
confused a lot, he doesn't understand a lot of things,he's not political at all.
He has...a lot of complexes. He had i hh1irnn almost from the beginning
with his national committee woman, who also served as his treasurer. And...he
was frightened about it all. He just never, he never had...he felt ' he was going
to be elected. He felt 'till the very last minute that there would be a movement
that he'd be...a compromised person.
K: Very specifically, I'm curious if, if you heard anything at all at this time
were
that Mr. Alexander and Mr. BrownAhaving some argument over his personal funds?
S: Well, there was some discussion about that, too, then, and that's where Helene
came in--would write checks for a while and all that.
K: Do you know anything specific a0boo V+ H+ ?
S: No I don't. No. I, we didn't get into that, into that part of it all. ...We
figured it needed some changing and...that was just another detail...
K: Just another incident.
S: ...it was not part of our...
K: Your problem.
S: Yeah. We really didn't think so much about the money cause there really wasn't
a lot.
K: When did you have to...have your organization organized and the candidates
on the slate ready to go? When were your elections going to be, March, '65
first primary?
S: Yeah. I believe it was that time.
K: And you still didn't have a choice for the party chairman?
S: No. No, we hadn't, we hadn't thought about it. Our--I know I had a thought-
of it, so did Marquita, 'cause we talked about it enough Our choice was
Lou Fry, and...I visited with Senator Gurney one day, at his home.
K: Do you remember when?
S: Oh, it was prior to March, I would guess. Had a delightful meeting with him,
probably the best meeting I ever had...with the senator. He was congressman then.
K: But it would of been early of '65, rather than late in '64?
S: Yes, yes. Because we were along--we were on our way. As a matter of fact,
I think it came prior, right after Lincoln Day, _rool the Lincoln
Day dinners. We had a meeting with Bill Kramer, and this is significant.
With Bill Kramer and Ed Gurney. And we told them what we were doing.
T_^e i Sc&, V.,' 1 I L^>C& 3Hi" Dow/gr o0d B=kb Creselius
K: Do you remember where you met?
S: It was in Ft. Lauderdale, Republican Governor's Club Hotel, or one of the
hotels there. They were speaking at--they were present for the Lincoln Day
dinner.
K: So it would've been some time in February?
S: Yeah, I would guess so. Sometimes they're held in March. Anyway, we did
spend some time with them, we told them what were doing. They were very
nice, they said they'd stay out of it, and all TC, 1 On, you know.
I think they indulged us, think they indulged us. ...Of course, Bill Kramer
is a very astute person, as you know, keenly politically astute. And when
it even became obvious there was a chance that Ed Gurney's law partner could
become the state chairman, he immediately put a stop to that. So he...visited
with...Ed Gurney, and said, "Look...I'm neutral, you're neutral, and all that
sort of thing. I just don't think it's right that your law partner be a can-
didate." And so, they pulled--well, wait a minute, I'm getting ahead of myself.
'Cause I did have this meeting with Ed Gurney at his home, and we sat and&:"
o r e,
talkedAlong while. And...it was a good meeting. I think he was impressed,
impressed with me, impressed with what we were saying, impressed with what we
had done. I still don't think he felt it was going to happen. Ed Gurney was
...in his own world. He's been in his own world for a long--for a good part of
his life. It's unfortunate because he, he should come down a little bit from
his world and see, you know, reality. But...and that's not meant to be critical.
'Cause hetsa good person. He's just--I can't believe, you know, what's happening.
I can't believe it, can't believe it. But anyway, he...was very cordial, and
we went on. But, Kramer convinced him 4oIF Loo Tr a t,
K: Back up one second.
S: Okay.
that
K: This meetingyou had with Gurney before Kramer and Gurney talked. At that time
he was amenable to having Lou Fry...
S: Yes.
K: ...as a candidate.
S: Yes b t-
K: 4e h)O. no objections to it.
S: No, no objections. ...He didn't think it was going to happen. He knew Lou
was dabbling in the Young Republicans, and he didn't..., you know, really--
he was a congressman in that area, and he had everything. He could've been a
congressman there forever, and he knew that. And...he, he really I don't think
at the moment was thinking with his head.then.
K: Then you had this--then there was this meeting at some time between Gurney and
Kramer. .
S: Ernie Tramer of our group, and....
K: And your group
S: Yeah. That's where--when Kramer lied to us, and said he'd be impartial, and
stay out of it and was all for us, but he wasn't. He was very much with Holly,
totally with Holly.
K: And he was with Holly, you think, at this time. You used the word _
S: I think so. I think so, because he did tell us...you know, directly that he'd
be neutral. And...I mean at least that, and, and be really was in sympathy with
us. But he was totally with Holly.
K: At this Ft. Lauderdale meeting?
s: Yeo .. o-ffer ee +hot h
at the state meeting. When the contest was taking place, he was there for Holly,
and his man....
K: But, when you met with him earlier...
S: He said he'd be neutral at this time.
K: ...he would be neutral at this time.
S: Yeah, yeah.
K: And of course, this is what you wanted...
S: That's right.
K: ...was support, but neutrality.
S: That's right.
K: Why was that? Why wouldn't you have wanted these men to...help you? These are
national figures, these are men of some importance, ...they're statewide people.
S: Well, we felt that...we could be more objective if we did it ourselves. We, we
didn't want to be part of a, of a Kramer faction, or a Gurney--there was no'
such thing as a Gurney faction. There was a Kramer faction. And Kramer had
been pretty well identified with Holly. Kramer was one of our heroes. No
question about it. Hell, we thought he was great. And he, and he was a fine
congressman. We were proud of him, proud of him. I, I think sometimes it
boils down to poor communications, you know, because really...if Kramer, Kramer
for all his brilliance, and, and he's brilliant when it comes to political
strategy, keenly brilliant. For all of this, he missed the point here. He
missed the point that could've put him in the United States Senate. If he had
realized, you know, the group, the seriousness of this group, and the ability
of this group. 'Cause this group, you know, went on, on to become very effective
in the party. And, and...you know, anyway, heiminssed it. And we became adver-
saries and it never healed, never healed.
K: Really. And sometime thereafter either in late February, but still before
March, Lou Fry informed you that he could no longer be a candidate for the
state party chairmanship...
S: That's right.
23
K: ...because of a meeting between his senior law partner, Ed Gurney, and Bill
Kramer.
S: That's correct. Kramer got, got him out of the race. And so we were faced with
the...situation where we thought we had the votes. We were, we were a factor
to be reckoned with. We had the candidates running for offices in the various
counties. We won some; we lost some. We beat some, some bad ones. We beat
the woman in...in...Orange County. ...We won some, you know, we really won some
good victories there... And in Dade County, we won that, you know, with Mrs.
O'Neill, and LOrf. Ti 'Birae. iQj Broward County, we won that seat, and
O... s"t V06 We had, we had a good, good vote count going.
K: So you think you were the issue then by this time, 'cause you're coming very
close to the meeting, was becoming a critical one, because you are now in a
relatively strong position.
S: Yes, and we had a very good candidate with a bright, young...attorney, in, in
Lou, a...man with a great future obviously. Made a good speech, made a nice
appearance. We had a good clean-cut candidate. That was a factor, too.
K: And very specifically, your information came from Lou Fry?
S: Yes.
K: As a result of his conversation with Gurney...
S: He was taken out of the race.
K: ...according to Lou, from Gurney.
S: Yes.
K: He, in other words, did not communicate with Kramer insofar as you know.
S: Lou?
K: Right.
S: I don't think so. _
K: I just want to make sure I got that perfectly clear how that, how that went on.
S: Yeah, yeah.
K: Okay. ...When did you p'r k 1i U o0C Y'\ ?
S: Well, we met...we were working all along, I'd see Tom Brown every week or so.
I had a very nice rapport with him. And I said, let's, let's, we had just
returned from a campaign management school in... ~oed cQ Georgia.
Mrs. Hawkins was there with me, my mother. And we were very enthusiastic, you
know, about this program and everything, and we thought it would be well for
us to have some type of a, of a statewide meeting...seminar. And so....
K: Excuse me for interrupting, this campaign school in _Gardens,
this would've been when?
S: In '65, sometime in '65.
K: Still before the March...
S: Yes...May, still before the May...
K: Still before the May meeting
S: Yes, oh yes.
K: ._____
S: Because Tom Brown had to sanction our, our attendance. He did, and he was there,
and so we, we were__ So I went to him and said, "Let's, let's do a
joint venture here. Let's have the Young Republican Trust Fund, and the state
party have a meeting in Orlando. Have a one day meeting or luncheon, and have
a...have classes in, in financing a campaign." And we did it. And it was a
tremendous success. It was about the best thing that happened to Tom Brown
in his four years. for us, in fact I have a picture somewhere in my
files of Tom Brown and myself, and ...and '13\ I iOr-Pi who was not
anything then, who wasn't known as the candidate in the same picture. wnd c h 4o
by then_ We made the decision there, if I remember correctly, and
adjourned that meeting. We had...had to get together on a candidate. Now, we
needed a candidate, this was before the vote, the second time we voted. This
was before...I don't, I don't remember the date now of this meeting. It could've
been, could've been in March of )5" I just don't recall. I wish
I had my ,cror0 book here. But...
T-
K: Of '65.
S: Of '65, yes. In any event, JrI'Af was not challenged in his county as the
state committee man, and he was going to be, he was staking in there d.c ;Q
by virtue of filing. We couldn't take a chance on a candidate that wasn't,
that wasn't state committeeman elect. In other words, if we had o Codi1 Fi
C-.. no matter how attractive he or she might be, we just couldn't go with
that, and run the risk. You know, because you start promoting somebody and
then he's not, not elected, he couldn't be elected as chairman. SoijP-i
was one and D.B. Nelson o0 ~rfbrL)was another, and there were a few others
in that category.
K: Why not Tom Brown? If you'd split with Alexander and he was opposed to Charles
Holly, and he was already there, why not Tom Brown?
S: 'Cause our people, a lot of our people...were against Tom Brown. There people
you would talk with that were a part of our team that just will tell you he's
a crook, they'll tell you he's the most-despicable person in the world. There
were people just, just hated Tom PyFfield Brown, as they hated Alexander.
People who didn't even meet any of these men. But they just had this fervor
about it. So they wanted a new face. And we agreed with that concept. We
agreed with that concept. So we needed a new face.
K: And...by this time, Alexander had put up, or at least at some point in time
before this May meeting, Alexander puts up Wilbur Barn.
S: Yes, that was his candidate, Wilbur Barn was his candidate.
K: Do you know anything at all about Mr. Barn?
S: Barn is an attorney from Tallahassee, He did not campaign. Alexander felt
he had the votes....
K: Jttst- by virtue of m Hi~ r .
S: By virtue of saying our candidate, "Joe, our candidate this year is Wilbur
Barn, good old Will," he may not have known Will Barn. But Alexander had
rapport with his people. It was so strong that if they said that Hal
Stayman was the candidate, Hal Stayman'd get their vote. Just like that, you
know, like pushing a twitch. Our people aren't that way. The people that were
with us, were with us, but the conservatives by, by nature, I guess,...are
purists. And...we'll split hairs and, and, and cross the 4~ee twice, but we'll
quarrel among ourselves and we would just have to be, you know, have to be sold
and re-sold y ao every hour. It's a different type of personality.
Alexander's people were, were disciplined. No qualm about it. They just did
exactly what he said. And he felt he could deliver the votes for Barn. He also
felt that Barn was, was doing some work. Now, somewhere along the way, we did
some figuring, and we figured Holly for x number of votes and we figured our
group for x number of votes. Holly was an...active campaigner, a good campaigner,
Makes a good speech, was all fired up in this thing. He had everything going
for him. We've got to get the new team in here. Barry Goldwater lost, and he
was saying the things very well that we were saying, you know, and so he had...
momentum, you know. And...then there would, then there would be Alexander votes.
We didn't call them Tom Brown votes because Tom Brown on his own probably wouldn't
have gotten four votes. I hate to say that 'cause I like Tom, but he probably
wouldn't have gotten four, three perhaps. But ..how few he had on his own.
He j/Si' n.o\f dAi. On ,O'u r'r, OtQ bur state committeewoman
? one maybe, one vote.in Pasco. But...so
Alexander had...pocketed votes. We...had, had this meeting in Orlando to determine
whoour candidate was going to be. ...We wanted to bring about the change O_
Bill MUty/, was selected because he had the, the qualities that we wanted.
K: Was there any debate about Bill ?IrFp ?
S: A lot of debate about him. One of the men...one of the trustees andu'lwalked
out afterwards said, "Well, we, we probably lost it." I didn't feel we had lost
it, but this man did. I lost a lot of my enthusiasm for: it 'cause I really
liked Lou Fry, and I was close to Lou and I, I knew him. Merkin was a loner.
MlTki was always a loner in the Young Republicans. He was a nice fellow, and
he was always there. But...we didn't know much about him. He was not a leader
in the Young Republicans. I don't think he ever chaired a committee. He never
was an officer. He was not the softspoken type, but a good guy. He's a lot
stronger than we ever realized. He turned out to be, in my opinion, an excellent,
excellent chairman. a4o 0, 10gF 0 strength.
K: You mentioned some qualities that you were looking for in a state chairman.
S: He had all of them. He had enough money, had three or four little drugstores, and
he didn't have the political ambition for himself. And he was a new face. So he
had the qualities we were looking for. He wasn't dynamic. He wasn't a member of
the club, so to speak. Fry was a member of the club at that point, and you kind
of like to go with a member of your club when you're making somebody. We had
done the work to make him. We felt we could've made anybody. The other choice
that we had was B.B. Nelson of Brevard County, and....
K: What was his bocikJ roon~c ?
S: Oh, he was in the insurance business over there, and real estate business hpe had
real estate business. And a good man, but...not a Lou Fry.
K: So there really was only three possibilities: Fry, Nelson, and ~-fM'in.
S: Well, if I remember correctly C t O P r < hP C Uc b u
We really didn't have much choice, but to select M-FFIA-. And...we, we selected
him, and developed this campaign. The first part of the campaign he went with
7
__and visited all of the people up in the panhandle. And
then he met me in Tampa, and we visited my part of the circuit.
K: All of this still before May?
S: All of this before the. .
K: This was really a crash campaign.
S: Yeah, I had him about the last couple of weeks. That, that's how close it was.
And I, I say this to you modestly, a"Xle-toloma h'i e no cause to exaggerate
it. We sat in theTrovq odp- in, in, in...in Tampa
you know, just the two of us. And I guess I just got the
spark then to, to just, you know, go for broke with itI l~e 'cause I didn't
know Bill all that well. We went to Br/i for dinner that night, and had a
good long talk together. ...B.B. Nelson and some people in Brevard County were
handling the operation, they had a VtiS line over there. They weren't doing
a very good job of it. We took control away from there. And it was my idea that
we go see Harold Alexander...
K: Um, hum.
S: ...which I think was the turning point of the whole thing.
K: Okay, now let's talk about that Alexander meeting.
S: That was, that was a secret.
K: That's a very secret meeting.
S: YeahCi IOc o- pponp don't even know it today. Somebody might even deny it, but
it sure as hell happened.
K: Okay, let's talk about that meeting.
S: Yeah.
K: When, the circumstances, how did you come to the decision, what went on?
S: We went down to see Bill Man in...in his office in Q,_ County, and it was...
Bill +Meik4t and myself and...Bill Shields and...I don't know who, there could've
been another person with.us.
K: How many weeks before the May meeting was this?
S: Week, week and a half before probably, the Saturday before the last Saturday
I would guess. It was a session in the morning. We went in there to see him.
Some of us had never seen him before. He was suspicious as we were suspicious.
He's a old .-es. No question about it. He took us to the yacht club for lunch
that day, and very polite. He was indulgent a little bit. The way the Democrats
were when we elected Kirk and became involved in government, you know, they're
very polite. They know how to really be smooth, they're as smooth as satin.
He listened to what we had to say, and we listened to what he had to say.
K: Can I interrupt yu?
S: Yes.
K: What prompted you to go to, or your group to go to Alexander in the first place?
S: Well, I took a vote counting and came to the conclusion that...that they had the,
they had the winning, winning votes for us, or for Holly. We were about...
K: They had the swing vote, in other words?
S: They had the swing on it.
K: I just wanted to make sure I understood that.
S: I didn't know how big a swing they had.
K: Okay.
S: But they had to go with somebody.
K: Okay.
S: So, and this kinda happened as every minute went by. 4-fhou-t--
K: Did Alexander understand that?
S: No, he didn't, no, ozd b\ed0~ias started out...feeling rather smug about it. And
he is, he was a political pro. He, you know, he really had something in his day.
And we listened to him, and he, and we knew about where his votes were, in, in
some of the northern counties, and some of the central Florida counties, and cer-
tainly the west coast counties. And they were blind votes. They'd do whatever
he said. And...these were the people that we had down as negative votes for us.
And...we listened to him for quite a while and Mlrkin was very, you know, M4rlkie
wasn't too wild about going .there in the first place, and he, he denied for years
that he ever went there, you know, to see, to see the man. But...I showed him what
we were doing. We got to talking there and I just, I said, "Now Mr. Holly, Alex-
ander, let me just show you what--how far along we are." And I show him, I went
even to show him the cards. I didn't let him read them, I showed them so he could
see that things were documented.. Showed him a map with colors in the different
counties. He was going where, and he said, "Well, that person's going to be with
me." I said, "No, now they're Holly votes
We hit him with a lot of stuff. Anyway, he was impressed with out organization,
and Will Barn had not done any work. And we had to sell, number one,\that Will
Barn could not win. There was no way that he could win. Number two, that unless
he took an active part in it, Charles Holly would probably win. We'd come close,
but Charles Holly would probably win. And, he took us to lunch and then he went
back to his office alone, and he did some checking. We went back to see him
later that day.
K: That same day?
S: Yes. If I remember correctly. This was years and years ago. I was very exci-
ted about it all because he was very important to us Q0 ,e decided
that he was going to support MeokiA.. Could hardly say his name; didn't know
how to spell it. And he got on the telephone and this was a marvelous thing to
watch, because we really had to work for our votes. He got on the telephone
and he called six or seven counties in front of us. 'Visited with the people,
howdy'd with them, you know, ..."How are you Ernest," Ernest Cransman. He said,
"Well," he said, "what do you think about this thing. He said, "You know, Will
hasn't been doing much." He said, "No, no, no." He said, "Well," he said, "I'll
MA~r-Pn; 1(ytr-4'A
tell you what," he said, "we're going to go with .Meek-n, this fellow M44.t-i"
And he had \ pen efr o t\ or whatever.
Is that you? You have this one. That must be yours.
So he, he got on the telephone and...my goodness, it was just like Oil Ove --
__, place. These people just said, "Okay, that's it, and...we'll,
we'll promote them." 'Cause this was a secret, and if we knew about this, of
course, we were very enthusiastic about it. We wanted to keep this thing, you
know, alive.
K: Who did you tell?
S: Oh, I don't think I told very many people about it.
K: How about the people who were trustees there?
S: No.
K: Even they didn't know.
S: They didn't know.
K: Can we draw an analogy to sort of a circle within a cirlce then?
S: Yes. I think that...Bill Shields knew. QsIhmaa knew. Mfri n-knew. I knew.
K: "See, 'cause I've gotten another impression of who the enemy was, and where
Alexander was in all of this in dealing with other people, so I want to make
sure I understand that this was really, really kept tightly within this group.
S: It was very tight, very, very tight. There wasn't even any, any indication
of anything like this until the night of the, the night before the election,
as the Alexander people arrived.
K: More out of curiosity than historical importance, why in years passed, after
this was over, why wouldn't people likeW MC-A or perhaps yourself or others
wouldn't want to talk about this meeting? What difference would it-have made
after all of this was done?
S: Well, I think thatME lff...sometimes when a man is elected to high office...and
I think this is a characteristic or a flaw, I guess, common flaw in, in political
people--they forget, they have short memories. They forget their supporters.
I never forgot it because I -ia it was a very significant thing to us. Of
course, I wasn't the candidate. If I'd been the chairman maybe I would've
forgotten it. It wasn't a convenient thing to reflect upon, maybe, but it sure
as hell happened. It's the only way it would've happened.
K: So this Young Republican group, just to put it in proper perspective, young,
enthusiastic, conservatives, new breed, getting ready to take over the party,
goes to the old master in patronage Republicanism to form a compromise against
another dissident group.
S: Right.
K: Well, that's peculiar.
S: It's the only way to do it.
K: That's peculiar.
S: It was the only way to do it. It worked.
K: And that's the important point.
S: Well, the thing is that...that is, we, maybe we were trusting. I don't know.
I was very deeply involved in it, and I, I...could understand G. Harold Alex-
ander, and I, I did-not find him to be--I frankly was more comfortable with
G. Harold Alexander than I could ever be with Charles Holly. I also realized
we were in, in a very important battle here. If...if we had lost this election
we might as well have left the cause because I know how Bill Kramer operates, and
it would've been a closed shop.
K: Did you make any promises or any commitments to Alexander?
S: Not one. He did say one thing;to MeRph when we left the room. He said, "Well,"
he said, "if I'm alive Bill," he said, "I'd sure like to be a delegate to the
national convention," and...and MeiAph. didn't, you know, he just... 1MerThi
didn't, you know, lferpinrridn't, wasn't thinking as a state chairman or what-
ever. He said, "Well, I sure enjoyed meeting you." He made no commitment at
all. In fact, rMeptln--I don't think he had as much affection for the old man
as I did. I had affection for Alexander. I really did. I thought that...
he was quite a person.
K: By the way, when he was making those phone calls while you were there, did he...
did he at this point in time call Will Barn in your presence?
S: Yes.
K: And tell him he was out?
S: More or less. HeCj14 i Cr' f^ 6' he didn't do it quite that crudely. He called
him and asked him what he'd been doing. Barn hadn't done the job. Barn did not
deserve the support. And we pointed it out to him, said, "You'll throw your
votes down the sewer." I think Alexander's back was against the wall. It wasn't
because of his, his love--as far as I could tell, he didn't have a philosophy,
political philosophy. It was just a practical, old-guard type politician, but...
it was the lesser of the two evils. And besides that, I did tell him this, I
said, "We would put some of the old-guard on our slate."
K: Okay.
S: I said that.
K: So there was at least some, some exchange.
S: Yeah. But not specifically that this person would be in. It would be, it would
be up to us. I, I felt that he was entitled ta that, and I felt it wouldn't
do us any harm. Keep in mind these people were going to be on the, in the state
committee for four years, and...I had some problems with6SO0t people
about that because they just couldn't...
K: About that commitment?
S: About having anybody at all that was ever associated with G. Harold Alexander,
no matter what. This is what's wrong, I think, with our party now and nationally,
because it's got to be, you know, the inner circle, you know. We talk to our-
selves but we don't win anything. We have to, we have to broaden the base a
little bit. And these people--we can learn from these people. And...I think
it's good where you have...oh, seventy per cent of the people over sixty-five,
I think you ought to have a couple of people over sixty-five on the slate.
K: And so, Alexander decided...
S: To throw in with us.
K: ...going to Tampa, to throw in with you?
S: That's right.
Tape II, side I
S: Now we were talking about...where were we?
K: Alexander, and we finished that meeting that would of been the Saturday before
the convention
S: Yeal, it was thei Saturday before that. We had a...
K: The Saturday before that.
S: ...we had one week in between, and we really...we visitedd with Marquita in Miami.
We had lunch with Marquita at the Country Store. Bill PeMrl and I. It was my
practice to meet her at least once every ten days to bring her up to date.
She was delighted with the progress. I don't know whether she thought for sure
we were gonna win, but she knew we were in there giving it a battle.
K: Did she approve of Bill Pbwkia?
S: Oh, yes! Oh, yes indeed she did.
K: Had she known him before?
S: No, uh,uh, not at all. She visited with him before that. No, she approved of
him 'cause he was a good honest fella. He...this was the beauty of it. You
know, we had confidence in each other.
K: Did you tell Marquita Maytag about your meeting with G. Harold Alexander?
S: Yes.
K: And how did she feel about that?
S: She thought it was pretty clever.
K: So do I.
S: Yeah, she thought it was pretty clever. She...you haweto know her. She's
really an extraordinary person, Marquita, brilliant woman. And...she wanted to
win this thing. She really did want, want a victory, but...she...she thought
it was a Cg Ie VkCi -f thing. She took it well.
K: By the way, for the purposes of this record, ...'cause I'm not sure we have
it on this tape, the check she wrote was for $25,000?
S: $25,000, yes, yeah. v
K: Okay, in this week before then, in the meeting it wea yot- ad Marquita Maytag.
Anything else of importance go on before we get to Tampa?
S: Just the usual last minute rumors and charges and counter-charges...youtre
getting close to a big election like this there's awful lot of...conjecture
and people are getting a little nervous and they think--we, we had visited a
lot of the counties we did. We visited a lot of them together. We...felt that
we had the votes. It was probably the most exciting thing I've ever been involved
in in my life, I must say that. We arrived...at the hotel. It was the Inter-
national Inn in Tampa. And...got there early that day, Friday. And of course,
-many of the legislators came, and Holly didn't have a, a pin or anything.
He used green ribbon. So anybody wearing a green ribbon was a Holly person.
K: I've heard that in this meeting in Tampa at the International Motel, and
getting off that important subject, getting to a type of minor issue about
these green banners and ribbons and...
S: Yeah.
K: ...that not only Holly's name was on them, but a I-C-Y.
S: Well, there could've been some--that ICY machine is the Insco-Kramer-Young
faction.
K: Can you, can you give me a little insight as to what this was, what this was
doing with--I know they were supporting Holly, this was Holly's group, but...
S: Well, Insco was, is the great strategist, you know. He's, he was the"aa"to
Bill Kramer, and a very effective political worker, no question about it.
Smart as a fox. And he was there, and he is Kramer, and Kramer is he. You
know, they're inseparable. And he was totally for Holly. Everywhere for
Holly.
K: By the way, this, this term you use, ICY machine, is that a common kind of
application or are you using that...
S: I don't think it was common then. No, it's--I-C-Y is referred to in the press
at St. Petersburg at much later years than that. That was early. It's a
federation of the three factions. Bill Young was a state senator then ..
The legislative delegation...
K: Behfiid Chor-/es
S: Oh, yeah! And they were present, and that hurt us a lot. We worried a lot
about that. But they didn't have the votes, you see. But they were there.
Particularly Bob Elrod was there. I'll never forget him. And this of course,
psychologically, hurt us. And we, we had a lot of psychological problems there
till those votes were counted. We had our votes, and but they had a lot more
drama. They had a couplecf very powerful people there. They hadMrs, Cassidy,
Ann Cassidy, from this county, who's well-to-do, She had a beautiful, huge
suite, and she provided Holly with that. And she was the big money person
behind him. And he had some other fine people behind him. He had some, some
radical people behind him. I think of some of them from central Florida, they
were there.
K: What do you mean radical...
S: Well, I mean extreme. I mean extreme people. People at the extreme right.
K: Oh, you'rerot using it in the political sense, then, you're...
S: No, not compared to what we think of today when we think of radical. In those
days if they were radical they were screeching around in the early hours of
the morning, you know. Because...our people came in and our people ?
more type people and everything. They were, they were quiet and, you know,
they were there and they had--we had a little, little stick-on pin that said
*F.hphen. I think it had an elephant and Murphin's name and it was bordered
in blue on a white background. That was the extent of our campaign material.
I mean we had brochures but our people would wear these things.
K: Had you been successful in fund raising through this period of time while
you were doing your other duties?
S: No, no, no, no.
K: Still there was no turnover of any extra money?
S: No, no our whole effort was...
K: Still shoestring.
S: Yeah, oh God, Spartan as hell. In fact, we were about broke.when we...
K: By the time you got to Tampa.
S: Yeah. And we did not have a lot of money. We had enough to have a hospitality
suite, we had enough to take care of a few things there, but we did not have
a great deal of money. We just didn't have the time to do it.
K: Which leads me to a question, sort of as an aside, but perhaps not, about things
that other people I've talked to, things I've been reading about. I can
understand that nothing breeds money like success. It's difficult to get
people to contribute large sums of money to losing causes, and the Republicans
had not had by 1965 what you might say, a successful political history. But,
these are people, by and large, and apparently in all three factions there were
people who had a lot of money. Just simply not willing to invest it yet, is
this the issue?
S: I think that was part of it, because they had invested in the past. See, we
didn't have any real serious candidate for statewide office, any real serious
candidate. This was one of the chief criticisms about Alexander, that he
didn't feel the candidates. But, I think it was the time. It was the era.
Florida then, and even today, Florida is essentially, the establishment of
the state is Demodrat. There's no question about it.
K: Right.
S: And the Republicans were kind of indulged, you know, ho-hum. And you ean get
a first-rate person to offer themselves for statewide office with so little
in terms of registered voters, in terms of capital. Our goal, our hope was
perhaps to one day entice a Bud Maytag type of person or an Eckerd type of
person. Didn't even know he existed then. But that type of person. Some-
body that had a name that was known. Somebody that had the business accom-
plishment, had the reputation, the Sterling reputation,that we could take
a candidate like this. We felt we could win with a candidate like that, still
feel that way.
K: Going into the Tampa meeting, was the, were the issues purely political or
were there other fundamental philosophic problems between Holly and 1e ph&n,
or between the two factions if you want to talk about it in the larger sense,
or was this blatant raw politics?
S: Well, there certainly wasn't much difference philosophically. Holly was, 5
conservative and ~keph was a conservative. I'm sure on some issues that
one might be little more liberal or a little less liberal. But we didn't have
that particular fervor. We were caught up in it because it was a continuation
of our, of our objective, you know, to get the mechanism, have the mechanism
to build on. We felt that we certainly had the goal there. It was...became
rather passionate. It was a hard battle. I mean there were...
K: But purely a power-play.
S: It was a, it was a matter of a fight for power, right. And...because you're
either in or you're out. If you run a fine race and lose by two votes you're
out for four years. This was a very important thing. Very important.
K: So there was alot of emotion.
S: Great emotion, particularly with the women. And it was a late evening. We
stayed up the whole night, of course, you always do, campaigning. The old
guard started arriving. They came in late, later in the day. And these were
people that some people had never seen.
K: This is Alexander...
S: The Alexander group. They came in that night and they came in the following
morning. And, of course, they started appearing with the lqephin stickers,
which I provided them with, and Chuck provided them with. 'Cause I was very-
much of a fighter in this thing. I'm not at, wasn't didn't get
as involved in it emotionally. I got involved in it emotionally, 'cause I
was vocal, I was kind of an invisible vocal person and I loved to debate it,
you know, 'cause I believed in what we were doing. So I was in one, one debate
after another.the whole night long. An4 group of them came to me in the lobby.
I'll never forget as long as I live, about seven of them. And, you know, how
terrible we were, they thought we were constitutionalists. They thought we
were conservatives. They thought we were purists as they were, you know, to
bring about -he Renaissance, you know, to participate in throwing the rascals
out. And here the rascals are wearing eTrpin pins. We, you know, they're
rogues. And I said to them very simply, "These people are going to vote for
one of two people tomorrow. They don't have a candidate, you haven't checked
it out. Will Barn's through. There's no way." They didn't know
about that. They didn't know Will Barn was out really until the eve of that
thing.
K: So his name never even appeared...- nomination .nytll-L ele?
S: No, never
K: Okay.
S: But I had lunch with Tom Brown the day before the meeting and I had Tom Brown
going to vote for us, and I had Helene Morris going to vote for us, and I sat
in her home with her. We had people that never agreed on the time of day that
were going to vote for our man. It was a great coup. We really did. And
this was, I think, testimony what we might be able to do is to bring the damn
groups together one way or the other. And so the point was that if the people
voted for you they'd be great; if they voted for us they're bad. It just des-
troyed their argument, you know. We even had the state committeewoman in
FYn ur P -
Charles Holly's home county vote for Meephin which took a lot of courage, Thelma
Fisher. Thelma Fisher was one of the people that I wanted to see given a
position on the state executive committee because of her courage in doing it.
I felt that that was--it's one thing to be for you when you're in Dade County
or another place, but when you have the courage to stand up and vote against
the man in your own coun ty and you go back to that county, it takes a certain
amount of character to do that.
K: Did you have any showing up to do before the vote? Did you have any weakening
or...
S: Oh, yes, hell yes we did. Lots of it. Some of the people from the east coast
who said they were--they bought this argument. My God, how could we have these
Alexander people going to vote for us? Helene Morris is going to vote for
Merpihn. Helene Morris is no good. Helene Morris is this... and we had to con-
tinue to take them one by one. And calm them down and say, "Now, don't buy
the argument." 'Cause our own ranks could've been splintered with this, you
see. And there were some people that were with Holly that were our friends
in some other instances.
K: So you really took a calculated risk when you went to see Alexander and did
this because it could've backfired...
S: No question about it.
K: ...in terms of Tampa.
S: No question about it. But if we hadn't of done it, we wouldn't have won the
race. We would've been, we would've run a good race, and we would've lost.
And Holly probably 'w6uld've lost because Kramer would've found a way to
communicate with Alexander. We pulled it, we really pulled it over his eyes.
He didn't think we would have the, you know, the _there.
K: Did you talk to Kramer or...
S: Yeah, I talked to Kramer.
K: ...Holly at Tampa?
S: Yeah d'~__
K: Pror- ?1- **F:
S: Yes, I did.
K: What went on?
S: I told Kramer that's another suicidal thing because Holly was twelve year or
Congrets
ten year's veteran of the pasti-and I told him, I says, "We're never going to
forget the fact that your bag-man is working all night long, you know, when
you pledged us neutrality." So I said, "We'll never forget it as long as
we're involved in this game and we're going to be involved in it. We're
going to win this thing tomorrow." And Kramer said to me, "Well, may the
best man win." I said, "He will win." And Kramer about three or four o'clock
in the morning went to see Me~eopn, visited with him in his room, in his suite.
And 7mrTphr, of course, was a late hour and 14rphin was impressed that Kramer
had come to see him, and Bill and I had a little quarrel over that, but just
a little one, nothing too severe. Because we were working our hearts and
souls out for XMgpb4t and he had to know that. But anyway, it was a very
sweet victory, and...
K: Did Kramer, in his meeting with Measpin, was this a private meeting just the
two...
S: Yeah, it was private. I was not, I didn't see him in there. Well, I mean
he's, he's clever, he's cunning, he's astute. He tried to cover his tracks.
e said, 1, you knOw
He said, look II _ hadn't been involved," and all that
sort of thing.
K: Did you talk to Charles Holly before the vote?
S: Little bit. Nothing to do...
K: Nothing ve-ry MfO(c\ O ,r"O, I ,
S: Just said that if, if he won, we'd want to pledge our support to him, which
we would've been in Iceland. That's about as close as we would've been to him.
Because it was a hell of a thing, you know. We took a man who was a great
orator, Holly was a good orator compared to what we had. He's a super orator.
M6iis could hardly put together three sentences. .yr ft 0 q O I1
disparaging, just isn't part of his, his talent. He picked up a lot, he
improved a lot. And we took a man who had been in the state legislature.
Ran against a man that had been a.member of the state legislature. We took
a man who had the full support of the legislative delegation which was all we
had in those days. We took a man who was the standard bearer for the office
of governor of this state. With the billboards and the posters and all the
play. We took a man that was known in the press.
K: How many people were at this convention?
S: I don't remember...I would guess there were between two and three hundred.
K: What kind of an organization did you have for that morning vote?
S: Had it well disciplined T.hord four managers
People who were in the trust fund all had different assignments and we had
42
--where we had people who were wavering or who needed strength we had one of
our best supporters sitting next to them and we had all that. And we had
the seconding the nominating, seconding speeches all down and...
K: Who nominated Maeph~n?
S: I...I don't remember it now. I just don't know.
K: You didn't?
S: I was not a voted member.
K: Oh, you would not--that's right, you would not have been a voting member.
S: I sat in the back row with Mrs. Hawkins. I remember that very well, 'cause
we kept the votes together. And Paula was very much for us in those days,
very much for it. It was a great victory. FITI, I've been involved in
a lot of things with Kirk and others, and we won, you know, the governorship
which was far more important materially, but I don't think I've ever done
anything in my life which was like this. First thing I did after the votes
were counted, I tOf i ~df1e' telephone call to Marquita, while they were
still up there. I called Marquita and then I called G. Harold Alexander.
I don't think ipWaha ever called him, I did that.
K: I think that's very nice. How close was the vote?
S: Not close.
K: It was not a close vote ?
S: I mean it wasn't, you know, it was a significant vote. And everybody on our
slate was elected.
K: And it was elected in the way that you planned it out?
S: Exactly, precisely.
K: sjred S e Jo'rOf'e 4-fS ^w
S: Yeah.
S: Do you remember who was on the slate besides Athphla.
S: Yes....Mary Lou Hammon was the vice-chairman. She was from Vero Beach, and
Lou Fry was the treasurer We all wanted that. And
Mrs.Mamie_ r ( was assistant secretary or something, from up in the
panhandle f.Q P'n RI nffp op/-,from--was on the slate, from Eustis,
Florida. And, I think, L- T k (k?) rmQ o Lee ho ,0(1 do\ 0
TO/r S,' c
was on there. I don't remember...
K: Anybody from Alexander's group?
S: Mamie l OfF would've been (C She had a minor office.
K: Would've been a mi- f rom the Alexander faction.
S: Yeah. We did make Mrs. Fisher the vice chairman for that congressional
district. There were a few. Nothing that anybody could get upset about at
all.
K: After the vote--well before we get to after the vote, in the wake of this por
C r-mn, e I heard something the other day about microphones and tables
and walky-talkies...
S: That was not with our thing. That was the time before. ta&ASAts A e
bews&,, Holly did all of that stuff in his ill-fated campaign four years
earlier.
K: Okay.
S: It came on a bad deal. We had access to all this junk, but it was junk.
K: B +o + f yo cd-il' f.. o k i ,..1 Non o~- -h + Kiid ot -tk`+' 4Re-
No 0 o-- There wasn't a tape recorder in view anywhere.
Nothing. And this was the, this was the thing that the press liked about
it...
K: A tape recorder in view, or a tape recorder not being there?
S: No, I mean the fact that we didn't have all.the...
K: All the electronic...
S: ...yeah, allthe electronic stuff, and we didn't have--didn't have any
pressure. It was an ivy league c re6 r rp_ -i i+,; orovy league +ne 4ny
what it was.
K: \In the wake of this meeting did Holly come to you?
S: No.
L
tIQur pi n
K: Did Kramer come to you, or Uwrphd. 'I should say, I guess it was...
S: Kramer--during the meeting itself?
K: After the vote.
S: After the vote. Oh, sure! After the vote, yes.
K: What went on?
S: Well, Mecpfin talked with Kramer. Kramer was still the senior statesman
of the party. It was very much in order for him to do it. He did a little
more than I'd like to see him do it, but he was the chairman then. And he
was very kind to Holly. His speech was, you know, he over did it. He o00 0 Y01 \ 0\
Holly this, Holly that, Holly... We were dismayed about that. He Mty_ r e(ri
Sthe chairman of the elected officials' committee which gave him a plat-
form from which to speak. But Bill, Bill quickly rose to the challenge of
the assignment. He really did. That was a--the Lord was with us because
he turned out to be a very able person.
K: Okay. This brings us to May, 1966, this meeting and then we run into the
situation that arises with Claude Kirk.
S: The day of the meeting, the day after the meeting, the next morning. F rf
0 f o had a hell of a celebration that night o.4 "nr -
We really did. It was ai r b~ca ro hle kb arioaI nkelebration I've ever been
part of. We just were so enthused.
K: How many people were there?
S: Our group...the people from Dade, and the--all the people who were part of the
trust fund and their mates and what have you. We must of had forty, fifty
people 'JB)rYs scattered throughout the place.CoJu rt l a P-I( + plhef
We just had a ball.
K: In your last conversation you mentioned something about the fact that yexn
himself showed up for the first time.
urr,, K3r-,- 'i ro _
S: Yeah -Ve is--Vern came out from the kitchen, and you never see VeS,. He had
a big tee shirt on and shorts and he _~ ) Ve is a grand person, and
Vern will always remember that, 'cause we had dined there a couple of nights
earlier, and said we'd be back one way or the other. And he's about as non-
political as you could ever find a person, but he's great. I love Ae-r. But,
anyway, we did have a great celebration. The next morning we met and Chuck
became the first employee of the state party. Chuck became
a field man for MzephAn, by the way. And I...I don't know, I went to see
Gurney after that, the day or so after that. And I became special repre-
sentative for Gurney.
K: In Florida?
S: In Florida. But I was paid by Americans for Constitutional Action, ACA.
K: That's when you went on the payroll.
S: Of ACA.
K: Of ACA.
S: Yeah, assigned to Gurney.
K: Okay.
S: For his race.
K: For his race.
S: Yeah. That was in May.
K: And your premise was to form ACA committees...
S: No, the first thing was I was gonna help, I was gonna work for Gurney in his
election campaign. But, I was intrigued by the ACA, and I wanted to help
a little bit on the side. And I said, "Maybe we could start some chapters
here in Florida,"which we did. I did that.
K: I have a question mark by our first insufficient transcript. It said, and
I quote, according to you, "I was full of all kinds of idealisms about cam-
paign management, about how you treat people, of how you pay people in
campaigns, and I was incompatible with Gurney and his number one man."
In reference to Senator Gurney's problems now in 1975, can you amplify
that, if you're talking about Jim Group.
S: I wasn't talking about Jim Group, because Jim Group wasn't on the scene then.
This was earlier. Charlie Martin was on the scene. But you could almost--
the same thing happened. Ed Gurney is a very egotistical person, unique in
that area, and also avaricious as can be. And the new method was, at'least
what I was raised, I believe in it, the training was that you pay people,
you pay them well for their services. Because you expect people in politics
to give more than eight hours to you. More than ten hours. You expect them
to live in their campaign, to be totally devoted and loyal to the candidate,
to the cause. And you just have to pay them sufficiently so that they don't
have to worry about money. If you're parsimonious about it, they'll need to
supplement it or they'll go on to something else. And if they're worth having
in the position, they're worth being paid. And you just have, that's your...
I feel the same way in business. You've got to pay people well for what they
do.
K: So you left Gurney's campaign...
S: Well, Gurney's campaign--let me give it to you as it happened -.Gurney's
opponent was through after a few weeks.
K: Because of illness.
S: No, because of the fact he couldn't beat Gurney, and realized it. So he with-
drew from the race. So Gurney was without, without a challenge. ACA was still
going to pay me through the election. Mfe~pin was caught up in...was very much
caught up with Kirk. It was the only place to go, so he was devoting all of
his time in the Kirk campaign. And so was C?) working in the
campaign. So Bob Lee and I attended a meeting, some kind of a dinner, in Ft.
Lauderdale, at Pier 66, and then at that time I had formed these chapters.
I formed one in Jacksonville, one in Pensacola, and one in Ft. Lauderdale, and
a statewide group as well, and another I volunteered to help. And Bob Lee met
me and put me in...asked me to come before him and go to Pinellas County where
they're having a lot of trouble.
K: Yes. And what kind kind of trouble was there in Pinellas County?
S: The trouble was that the establishment, the senior party, was lukewarm towards
Kirk, and very lukewarm toward the Kirk organization which was composed of
newcomers.
K: This would've been Kramer?
S: Right. Kramer ran the party in Pinellas County like a 'I~t with an
iron hand. And we were, the poll in the St. Pete Times showed -us to be about
twenty thousand votes behind Robert King High at that particular point. Now
whether that was true or not that's what we had to see. That's what we saw
and that's what we read about.
K: And...so you went to Pinellas County?
S: Yes.
K: Now, let's go and talk a bit about Kirk, and his getting the nomination in
1966. It's quite clear from what you said before and from what I know that
Governor Kirk had nothing to do with the party mechanism--what went on in
Tampa, the Young Trustees Group, or even Charles Holly. And all of a sudden,
he gets the nomination. What kind of pressure did that place?
S: First of all, the Kirk people, Kirk and Bob Lee will tell you that they were
the ones that put Mephin in if you'd sit and talk with them. They'll tell
you this. They'll say that because he was the candidate, people would say,
"Claude, who do you want to be state chairman?", and he'd say, "I want Bill
Me"ikn." (jeA I tS c6.s s+ .
K: Was he 0+ 'To Governor Kirk?
S: No, no.
K: Was Bob Lee a-eaRaada
S: No. They.. don't recall them being there. I know Kirk wasn't there. BOb--
I don't recall Bob Lee being there. I certainly would recall that. No, they
were not involved in this race at all. It couldn't have been done--there's no
one that could've walked into this thing and done it because this had to be
48
done in advance. All this took months and months of work, and Kirk wasn't
even in this, in the country when we started with all of this...
K: Right, he had...
S: ...but...
K: ...in France.
S: ...he was, he was our candidate.
K: How did he get to be the candidate?
S: 'Cause he was the superior candidate. He made the speeches, he had the appear-
ance. We had two other people running against him, Muldrew of Brevard, and
Dr. Myers of Ft. Myers. And the Youn Republicans would've gone with Myers.
Paul Myers was a very likeable person, and he was the one we liked, till Kirk
came on the scene. And Kirk knows hok td, h e came to our convention
there.
K: To the May meeting...
S: Well, no to the Young Republicans.
K: To the Young Republicans meeting?
S: Yes. The Young Republican :State Meeting was either in Ocala or Gainesville.
I get mixed up which city it was in. It was in one of those cities. I think
it was Ocala. I'm not sure about that. But, anyway, wherever it was, he came
in there and he came in in a blaze of glory.
K: And this would've been still...
S: That was prior to the state...
K: To the state election.
S: ...election, sure.
K: Would've been sometime very early in 1965.
S: Right. Well, I was national committeeman for the 6 1 /\
and so I was active in that and we were all there. And Kirk was a charming
person.
K: Just having gotten off the boat.
S: Yeah. He came there with a couple of cases of premium whiskey, and won every-
body over. ...I mean he had the Young Republicans in his pocket. And they
had \ 4 4- 4A P _p and that gave him momentum. And he, and he
really ror n rd (eat'... he had...nobody that could really stand up to
these things. So and then he had run before, and his name was first in the
alphabet. This is a factor in a primary. Anyway he won and he was a candi-
date. So,..
K: Then, once the candidate, and then all of a sudden it's not Hayden Burns, it's
Robert King High and that changes...
S: Everything.
K: ...everything. Can you elaborat4n some of those changes?
S: Well, there was a movement to have Kirk withdraw as a candidate and be replaced
by Bill Kramer.
K: Do you, can you document as fact that Bill Kramer went to Claude Kirk and asked
him to withdraw?
S: No. I can't. I was not close with him at the time to __.
like that, but I....
K: But this is common knowledge that this occurred?
S: Yes.
K: Is...in the rumors that went around about this meeting, is there any suggestion
that Mr. Kramer offered Mr. Kirk anything for it--money, position, othertJi'
S: I don't know whether he d1-t COUj d hparkd was in a position to do
it. I'm sure it was handled in such a way that it would be hard to get a direct
quote on either side of it. You know how people are in politics. They pro-
bably d ro p Clor~ r,.L windows on both sides of it. T e rr o hwn.c,
offered to give Kirk his filing fee back. They probably appealed to him on
his sense of party loyalty, "Look Claude, you can't win. You're an unknown,
but I can win, and I've got the experience," and all that sort of thing.
Probably something like that.
L
K: Do you think ithappened?
S: I do think it happened, yes.
K: Is that common,,common acceptance or common wisdom that...
S: I don't know about that. I just, I just feel that it happened. It makes,
makes sense for it to happen. And I've heard it from too many people who
were around in...
K: Around both Kirk and Kramer n CQ- Bill Msrpafr?
S: Yeah, yeah.
K: Bill Mp n says it happened, ,4 se. 50 Wgell k a I/ Woc f l-p/i rFi,
S: Yes, I think so.
K: Okay, with Robert King High in, and...Claude Kirk in, Bill Kramer out, at this
point in time, the...in your meeting with--having first met Governor Kirk
r Efer ~'frO "i4e 5 nt'p in 1964, was this meeting in Ocala in '66.
I have much of this material from our previous interview, so Itm not going
to necessarily repeat all of that unless you want to.
S: No.
K: But I am kind of interested in just a few items. First, was the issue of
your own campaign in 1966, -you put your name up. Excuse me, in 1967, after
reapportionment, you ran for the legislature in Dade County, at the same
time that you were helping to work for Ken Plant from Orlando. And in our
previous interview you suggested that reapportionment created a tremendous
pressure because you had to find field and find new candidates for offices
and so on. And I'd like to explore that just a little bit further, and by
re-asking you a question that I asked you before and I want to get at it
again...
S: Sure, sure.
K: ...to make sure I really understand it. You did double duty, in other words,
running as a candidate and: running somebody else's race...Mr. Plant's.
First of all, what was wrong with Ken Plant's race that you needed to be
called in?
S: Personality clashes between his father and--Bob Lee sent a woman up there,
Rita Traver, who worked in the campaign ( for Bob and Bob felt
that she was a pro to go in there where she had a conflict with Ken's father
and there was another person in there. They were all mixed up in each other.
They couldn't get along and they fought....
Tape II, side II
K: Let me, let me get at the point about this Plant issue that concerns me in
'67 when you went to help out after reapportionment with Plant's race in
Orlando. Orlando's a very good Republican area. There wasn't any problem,
GOP faction problem, left over from May at the International Hotel between
anybody. H or...
S: No.
K: ...Gurney or Kramer. Anybody getting in the way of this I ,. O
S: No it wasn't that.
K: ...was it just internal weakness.
S: It was internal weakness and the fact that Kenny was a neophyte, and the son
of a pretty well-to-do man, but not a very prominent person in the town. He
made some money but he wasn't part of the establishment. Kenny was running
against Be?+h4 Johnson, who's was a political fixturethere. A very tough
race. And my--the reason Dade County was unimportant by comparison, because
here we had a chance to...elect a senator, and our chances in Dade were very
modest. Although we should of elected people in Dade County, if they'd done
what I suggested that they do there they would've elected somebody that time,
but they didn't do it.
K: Let's recapsulize a very important question that lead to some very interesting
conversation in our last butchered tape. I asked you a question at this point
in time. This problem can also be turned around and looked at another way.
The fact that you had to do double duty, running as a candidate and running
somebody else's race. Could this have meant, in a political sense, that the
Republican Party had come too far too fast, by 1967? That there wasn't enough
money, that there weren't enough candidates, that you've been too successful
too quick. In other words, is it possible that Governor Kirk's election...
S: Came too early.
K: ...in '66 just came too early?
S: Oh, it certainly did that. We...in our wildest dreams, we never suggested for
a moment that we'd be electing a governor in Florida. We used to speak and
It ( u S "-...
say we're gonna elect, the party whth-we elected in Georgia, Bo Callaway,
would be a great victory for the conservative cause in the South. We never
dreamed we had a chance here to win. We didn't have the party apparatus set
up. We didn't, we really as a party, did not make that great a contribution
to Claude Kirk's campaign. Now, we just have to be fair about it. We say
that he didn't contribute to Merhin4's campaign, which is true. We must
(t 0crp;A
also say that we didn't contribute a whole lot to his. Now, Ierphi worked
hard and I worked hard and a few other dozen people did, but the party didn't
say to Kirk, "All right, here's 150,000 mailing labels for you. Here is
twenty thousand dollars, or here is an organization in sixteen counties." We
had nothing like that. We had a party that was just, just there in name.
We had people in major counties where we only had maybe thirty-five or forty
activists. So the party wasn't at the point where they could have a dop,
I with the governor. So when Kirk was elected, we couldn't really
go to him with a clear conscience and say, "The party made you. You are a
Republican first," because he really wasn't a Republican first. I mean, if
he had been, he wouldn't have been elected probably. He was really a man
of the demo-Kirks and part of the Republicans and, but mainly the independent
voter in the state. The people who were terrified by the threat of...Bob
King High.
K: Okay. Let's, let's explore that two, two different angles if we can. First
of all, what was the game plan after you got the party chairmanship? When
did you expect to elect a governor?
S: Four years later. We expected to have the years to raise some money and to
build an organization. Have the field staff. Have a newspaper. Have regular
meetings. Integrate the services of the Filjida Federation of Republican
Women. Involve the Young Republicans into one big, happy family. Break bread
with those people who were worth breaking bread with in the past. Replace the
ones that weren't, and go on from there. And find people to run for offices on
a lower level, rather than on the statewide level. In other words, we had some
very fertile areas in which to work in Florida. In Pinellas and in Orange
County, and in...we, we had the philosophy. But, we realized the importance
of a major office, but we really never dreamed that we'd have anything before
1970. So, it was early, and we, many of the people who were on that first team
left the team. It's a little bit like ACA. We did a great thing with ACA, really
we did. In Duval County, I created an organization at the head table, and
I'll never forget it. I had the Democrat state committeeman and I had the
Republican state committeeman at the same meeting in the same cause. Now that
had a lot of promise, held a lot of promise. But we couldn't stay with ACA
because we left to do other things, our leaders, and so ACA just sort of fell
by the way side. It wasn't our style to allow things to, you know, fall by.
the way side, but we had no choice here. We just had to go on with other
challenges. People became involved in government, they were really the workers
in the party, and had to give up their partisan roles. And as a result, some-
one else came along. I really, it would've been a lot better if we'd had four
more years, really it would've been.
K: Is this what you meant, and just for purposes of amplification, the second
question, I'm quoting you now,- "When we took over the mechanism of the party,
we were not realistic in our thinking." "In my naivete," you said, to go on,
"in thinking that Republicans were better than Democrats in that period of
time." Did this create any problems, you talked about inexperience, you
talked about naivete, a lack of realism. Is this part of the problem, that
you really didn't have anybody who could counteract this overwhelming suc-
cess in Kirk's election? Was this the problem, in other words?
S: Well, ILthink it was part of it. We had people in office that were there
for other reasons in our party. We were, we found a difference of opinion,
a difference of philosophy. We weren't getting things done. Reapportionment
did give Claude Kirk a veto power which was used over and over again. But,
we didn't have the...we didn't have the right person sitting at the right
hand of the governor ever. We did for a few months. When Merphin was in
Tallahassee during the early days of the Kirk administration we had the
smoothest operation that you'd ever see, and it was great rapport, great
understanding. You must remember the Republicans would be reading hostile
press about Kirk over and over again. M!_pititf was the one who said, "Now
look, keep faith. The man's doing this, the man is doing that." He was...
you know, he was our person on the scene. We had faith in Bill. Kirk had
his set of people who were telling him how bad the.Republicans were. Tom
Ferguson, his aide, would constantly fan these C\Ad0L 5 and say,
"Governor, you don't need those people. You won without them." And this
was the sort of thing. If we had had some of our, our sensible people
there with the governor, around the governor, we could of, we could of, in
spite of the time being a little bit off base, we could of probably built a
very effective organization. It's...it's a tragic thing to see what happened
really, because Kirk could've gone on to so many other things.
K: Right. Let me ask you a couple of very direct questions, because when we first
met, when we first'talked, you said I could ask you anything I wanted, and
I want to ask you some direct questions. Number one, Governor Kirk had some
weaknesses. What were they?
S: Ego, probably. One of the biggest ones. He...probably, probably liquor.
Probably love of life. He likes to travel in a flamboyant style with flam-
boyant personalities. He worked very diligently in his office. He, goodness,
I don't think the state of Florida has ever had a chief executive officer who
devoted more of his life tothe job. He had a tremendous amount of energy.
He...twenty hour days were not unusual for him. He played, but he worked hard
too.
K: I asked you a question before and I want to ask it again. Did you see any of
these problems during the campaign, before the campaign? You had met Governor
Kirk...
S: Oh, yes, sure.
K: ...a long time before.
S: Sure.
K: How about--were there other people who saw these problems beginning t) Oc ur
S: Oh, yes! Yes, we didn't think--we didn't think, we had...we were for the
governor, but he was...he hadn't changed any. He was just about on the
campaign trail the way he was in Tallahassee. Just a different type of per-
sonality. He's...we knew, you know, we took a, discounted some of his words,
you know, from +me 'o +imt ,.
K: The last time you said, and we talked about this campaign, and I quote you
again, "He was in this thing with a sort of last hurrah situation, and we
realized that alot of times he said things that he wasn't at all sincere
about."
S:A TJe Wt hI +- papers would be an example of this. I don't think he knew
what was in those (J)h'+g papers any more than any of us who tried to decipher
what was in them. It was sort of a hoax-type of thing. He knew the position
paper. It was really a situation where the Democrats made a terrible blunder
in nominating a man that was so far to the left, at least in image, that they
could not blame the, they could not not expect the Democrat voters in the
state to blrae-fhe bd1 Fe\\) 1Wo a 4bcr{ (cad.
K: What did you mean by a last hurrah situation?
S: Well, I felt that if Kirk, we said this many times during the campaign, he'd
either be the governor or he'd be on the streets, so to speak, because his
business ties were questionable, what remained. And I don't mean to blaspheme
him at all, but he's just a, he...he had everything going in this race, and,
as we say, just like in our little race for the state chairmanship, you either
win or you lose. And if you lose, you lose. Doesn't matter how close you
come. You have to get that position. When he won I don't think he really
knew what he had, nor did any of us. I'll never forget the telegram nis got
from Ashe Fc\pcfAe. r^ cose T rnp'hp nc 4 -z
before s- 1sAP lpr- (~vO 'r was probably his dearest friend from
Jacksonville. One of the first telegrams that came in said, "Good God, Claude,
what do we do now?" You know, after he won it. That was about it.
K: You also made a statement that l-*ep challenged some of the things that Kirk
did. Where were their conflicts?
S: With appointments. Oh, early...
K: How about some specifics? Oh-) it's not really fair to ask you 'Se? kiAdo.o ..
S: Well, I can't say that I know the appointment of some of his major aides left
something to be desired. But, all governors seen to do this. I've seen it
with Ruben Askew. I've been close enough to this administration to see it.
I see the same type of people assuming these positions. Their names are dif-
ferent. Their accents a little different, but they have the same strengths
and same weaknesses. What, probably both governors, Kirk and Askew, one mis-
take they made is they haven't had a senior person. You really need a seasoned
veteran to be, as an advisor. I think Nixon's made the mistake. Certainly
Gurney's made the mistake. You need someone who knows a little bit more about
life. 'Cause if you give somebody, too early in life, that type of power, that
type of influence, they're not prepared for it. I've seen too muchAreckage
around.
K: You also made the statement that in Pinellas County, Democrats worked harder
for Kirk than Republicans.
S: Oh, yes indeed.
K: And that continued all the way through the campaign?
S: Well, I felt that it did. I saw it there first hand.
K: When you were there?
S: Yes... When I wanted something done I went to several of the people that were
the Democrats and got it done. The party just wasn't quite ready, because
they're waiting for Bill Kramer to say, "All right. Go ahead. Give it more
than tokenism," and he never said it. We did all right in Pinellas County.
But it was because, again it was not because of any great super strategy on
our part. I must say that.
K: Did Hayden Burns ever contact Bill MerpT n about working and Burns, not just
Burns' people, but Burns himself? Did he ever contact.. .Mesp~ n?
S: I'm sure he did.
K: About working for Kirk?
S: Yeah. Burns helped us tremendously.
K: In what ways?
S: With people. I was in a room and we got on the telephone in Pinellas County,
and Jerry Murphy, who's one of the commissioners over there at the time, and
a Democrat, talked with him right in our presence. He was very interested in
the campaign, how's it going. A lot of the Burns people were with Kirk right
from the beginning. Not a lot of them, most of them.
K: Money?
S: Everything. Money, time. They knew how to do the job. We didn't know how to
do the job. We had great people. They've got the signs. They knew where to
put, you know, the people, allow the signs to be put up on their property.
And people who'd provide the wood to make the signs, and people that'S drive
menAwomen to the polls. They were a tremendous factor in the campaign.
And they were forgotten quickly, too.
K: I don't want to--don't see the need to repeat any of the material dealing with
the 1968 issue of Kirk's putting Gary Cir;npllnei (?e. ? us- Paula
Hawkins, or about the slate material. I think we have that all pretty well,
pretty well done in terms of completing out this tape from the rest of it.
But, I am interested in something about the issue of Governor Kirk's so-called
vice-presidency, when he, of course, he went out to support Nelson Rockerfeller.
But prior to that, I'm wondering if you ever heard the story that at Kirk's
inauguration, in which Richard Nixon, private citizen attended in 1966, that
Mr. Nixon either told Governor Kirk or Governor Kirk's father-in-law through
his first wife, that he was going to put Kirk on the ticket with him in '68?
Have you ever heard that story?
S: No.
K: Does it surprise you?
S: No, it doesn't surprise me, because there's an awful lot of talk, eel~aa -im
K: But you never heard those kinds of rumors?
S: Not that kind of a rumor, no. I know this, that there was quite a bit of
conjecture about Kirk, 'cause Kirk became the hero of the South with his
election to governorship. He was the first Republican governor for a long
time in the South. Mefphi! became a leader among the state chairmen of the
South. We were very much a part of that thing. They were, they're good
people. They...there was an awful lot of work done that Kirk wasn't even
aware of with the people who were going to be part of that convention in '68,
on behalf of Kirk. But you see, Kirk started seeking the nomination by going
all over the place speaking, and by flying all kinds of...hundreds of thousands
of dollars worth of jet fuel, and by having brash aides that with the walky
talkies and with the other mechanisms...he really did himself a great disservice
Honestly, if he had just cooled it a little bit, and been a good governor, with
...geography being what it is, with his appearance and his speaking ability,
his philosophy...honestly, he could've been sitting /(?
And you know what that led to, all of it. And it's not at all out of the
realm. It was there, honest to goodness, that's part of the way...
K: I want to explore this just a little bit further. In your first interview
you said, "Bill Metppn had done so much work to help the southern chairmen.
Honest to goodness, we had the support-of the southern chairmen for him,
meaning Kirk, for the vice-presidency." How, when you talk about support,
was this an issueight away in 1966? I mean was it that obvious?
S: Oh, no. This didn't happen immediately. It's something that built-up.
You must understand that when these men get together they have their routines
and their administrative details... Let's stop this thing a minute.
They spend a lot of time talking about presidential politics, and through
the wee small hours they'll talk about this person and that person and come
up with different dream tickets. There's a philosophical comrades' spirit
with the southern states. They've been a block. They've been overlooked a
lot in both parties in the past, but their time has come. In importance and
as a block they could really project, they could influence either of the
candidates. Certainly Nixon. Because to have a man with the qualities of
Kirk from the South available would be a good thing, you know. And it made
a lot of sense, it was logical, and it developed. The only thing with these
rumors and stories and all the bad press about Kirk, you know, which turned,
them off. The Kirk's thing with Rockerfeller was a shockerto-all of us.
I thifk you have that on...
K: Yes, we have that on your, on the first tape. There is one thing on this tape
that I'm kind of interested in, and that is that you, because of some blow-
ups that we have already talked about with the competing slates in 1968 and
so on, you had wanted to go to the national convention, and you were looking
forward to going because Mrs. Maytag was going to be there. You made the
statement that the president's brother, Don Nixon, invited you to be his per-
sonal guest. Had you, what was your relationship with either one of the
Nixons.
S: Well, Don Nixon was working for a food company. I was director of the turn-
pike, and the food company wanted to be our concessionaire on ov0 S.9_QtL
of the restaurants of the Florida Turnpike. That's how I met him. He was
essentially a P.R. man, a very affable and agreeable person. There wasn't
any way we were going to do business with him because unfortunately, the
company he represented wasn't of the quality of the fOrr i6* ,
And, nevertheless, I did get to know Don and some of his friends and we did
go to the convention and stay with the Kansas delegation on the floor so that
we could participate, my wife and I. And then we went to the Nixon family
hospitality suite, and invited some of the Floridians to come up. You know,
I was inviting them, you know. I had to stay away from the Doral where we
were meeting, because I was embarrassing to Governor Kirk. Because I would've
been a Nixon--I would probably have been for Reagan. If I had had my druthers,
I would've been for Ronald Reagan, no question about it. And that was part of
the deal, you know. Mrs. Maytag was for Reagan. A lot of the people that we
helped get involved, including Me=pbin, just sort of forgotten about Reagan in
the I ) That was very disappointing to Marquita. She hasn't
forgiven a number of the people, because she had a different relationship with
these people. Some of them were very dear friends, and they just didn't keep
their commitment to he. But that's, that's life, you know. People do change.
But, I suggested to Don Nixon that he become associated with the Mariott people,
\\ h v'aCdone. oP
because that was really the -ffi company which e-had done, but
nevertheless...
K: You have an interesting poetic ending on the first tape about thinking about...
the potential history of the Republican Party rather than the actual history
if Kirk had been different in philosophy, and I don't think we really explored
that. What would have been different? This has got nothing to do with what
would be in the book. If Governor Kirk had been a different kind of a man,
if he hadn't been so abrasive, if he had been a party Republican, if he had,
he'd been--well, just leave it at that. A different kind of a man.
S: I just thought about that the other day, as a matter of fact. I was thinking
about you coming here, and I thought about it. And there was so much promise
there, you see, because peopleare hungry for leadership. This recent up-
heav4l in the Florida legislature just last week would show you that.
K: Ur, hum.
S: They, you can't talk down to people. You can't recruit them after you beat
them into a corner, and remove their dignity. You have to do it another way.
Kirk had a mandate, a substantial victory. Not a little victory, a big
victory. One of the biggest victories in our history at that point. Here
he was, a Republican, and he had two hands, you know. He had people on that
cabinet that he was very compatible with, or could've been, or should've been.
Bud Dickinson, Doyle Conner, you know. Natural allies. He didn't develop
those things. He got into battles with them, right from the beginning. The
legislators--I know in dealing with legislators as an agency head I had no
problem. I had some initially till I qualified myself. I had to qualify my-
self. You have to expect that. You must. You're new, you're a different
party, I mean, you're young, is he a pay-off guy or is he bright enough to
learn the job. You have to prove yourself and you can't be critical because
they ask these questions. You can't get brittle about it or abrasive. Some
of Kirk's people became abrasive like O'Neal, and so instead of using their
brains where they could've won converts, they didn't. Kirk did a lot of
things with his agencies. There were a lot of deficiencies that were created.
There's an awful lot of room for improvement, because you had a situation where
you were replacing a whole series of Democratic governors that had their
various cronies, and pals, and relatives placed in one agency after another.
And it's got to the point where a new governor would come in, but he couldn't
tamper with so and so because that was Hayden's man, or that was Farris's man,
or that was LeRoy's man. And I don't say that disparagingly, but we just had
several..layers of people like that. We were able to be fresh and imaginative
and clean house. We were guarded about it because we didn't want to be with-
out compassion. We wanted to be sensible, and we were constantly aware of the
focus on us, you know, so we were f nuP. QC' p [tf,. about
it. Most of us. Some of the people weren't. But, Kirk is a convincing person.
When you meet him and interview him you'll be very impressed with him, I know.
You'll find him to be eaimated and very...in great depth, you know, bright.
He has all the charm, and he wants that charm. He can charm you whether you
be Nelson Rockerfeller or, you know, an Arab. I mean, he's got that ability.
He's done it, in his finest hours he's been unsurpassed. And he's been down
to the drags, too, the same people. He could have...he could've supported
good people for public office. He did with some of them. He could've brought
together a brain trust if he had not had these narrow-viewed aides.
K: You're talking about people like, ()
S: Yeah.
K: Tom Ferguson?
S: Um, hum. Shallow.
K: There's an awful lot to write about that was controversy about Governor Kirk.
There's a lot that one could write about even without doing a hatchet job, which
I have no intention of doing...
S: No.
K: ...that was wrong with Governor Kirk's administration those years. A lot of
conflict, a lot of problems. What was right? What went right from your point
of view, sitting on the turnpike authority, being in that administration hak _QEc fb
S: I guess the thing that impressed me the most about it is I had two major appoint-
ments from Governor Kirk without any strings whatsoever. I was director of the
turnpike. He never asked for a thing. We never got a call about buying a
product from anybody, or hiring anybody particularly. Oh, maybe a couple of
clerks. We had a few people in little jobs. But my big jobs, I filled myself.
Our contracts we filled on the merits of the contract. We had very honest
authority. When I became secretary of the department of Professional and
Occupational Regulation, we had all the licensing boards. Never one -time.
did the governor call me or a key person of the governor call me and say,
"So and so took a test. How did he do? or "So and so should be on this
board or that board." I never had any of that. Never saw any of that. So
that's good honest government. And I was in a position to see it, you know,
and I didn't see any flaws like that. That was good. He was a challenger.
He was the devil's advocate or whatever you want to call it. He was refresh-
ing. He shook the trees. It was like...you know, I think he's missed. He's
got to be missed. He had his share of poor appointments. I think every
governor has that problem. We see it today. But he, he tried to do a lot
quickly and he didn't protect his flank. He said what he believed as he felt
it all the time. Most of the people in politics don't do that. I learned
that in a hurry. I learned it from O\\ 0R- tiG. Democrats. You'll
think that they're your dearest friends, dearest friends. They have all the
charm, and all the polish, and all the abilities, and they, they just, you
know, smile and then they go on to do something else. And it's just the method.
I guess maybe it's smooth if you go to Washington and talk with either party,
Republicans,or even in Tallahassee for that matter. The real pros are pros.
And you must remember we were not pros, and Kirk was not a pro. He was a brash
executive. He made a lot of money in a hurry. He made it through his tenacity,
through his own personal charm and wit, and intelligence, and he was that type
of governor. He put some of us in positions where we could bring honor to him,
and bring glory to the administration, and he didn't tamper with us. Some of
the people that he...put in some of these positions were not of the same stuff.
He...
K: Who were his strongest appointments' people?
S: Nat Reed was a very good appointment, and Charlie my of the
Turnpike Authority was a good appointment. I think that Don Michaeljohn was
a good appointment. I think Jay io ticc /It';l was a very good appointment.
K: Who were some of the poor appointments? ILn f Opft )"
S: Mike O'Neal, Jack Cashin, very poor, very poor appointments. I'd have to really
go back into some of them, you know, it's been a long while.
K: Sure, that's perfectly understandable.
S: But...I think that Jim Backs was probably a very fair appointment, that was
health, the Board of Health.
K: Something....
S: I think his judges, some of his judges were excellent. I think some of his
grass root appointments were outstanding. He never really got a lot of credit
for that. 5LE r14iV Wilson in Brevard County, Q f c0 a s-ar-
K: One question that I've asked everybody else that I've interviewed, including
Ash Ferlander, who I've talked to that I forgot to ask you. Now is a good time
to do it. If you were going to interview Governor Kirk, and you were going to
ask a question or two, what would be the most important thing you'd want to
find out from Governor Kirk if you were going to sit and interview him, knowing
what you know from your perspective?
S: Well, I'd like to know at this point, what he'd do over, what he would've done
over if he could start again. I would surely like to know what he felt were
the most significant accomplishments of his administration. The flaws in it.
Those would be IcI'icA questions, I think. He'll have a thousand little
stories that he can give us that few of us thought about, you know, that I
would be enlightening. He's...he's a man that's been, you know, how can I
tell you? You know, he's gotten so much criticism for being flamboyant and
brash and such a high liver which, you know, these things are true, but he
gave a lot. For instance, I used the example of Mike Thompson, because I
think it's something that I've felt over the years. Mike Thompson was
the first recipient of patronage of any Republican in modern time, because
Kirk was hardly in the office, and Mike Thompson was hired to work for
Wackenhut in the war on crime.Mike was a candidate for Congress in Dade
County. You'll probably meet him somewhere along the way or you'll hear
about it. He's been a perennial candidate since (2) And then Mike
wanted to run again for Congress, and Kirk opened an office in Washington,
and put Mike in there as our man in Washington which is a badly needed
thing. Governor Askew has it now to help with the federal patronage and
But
liason with the congressional delegation. Kirk got blistered one side and
up the other. ,\H r'-. you know. "What's this man doing?
How much is he doing?" It was a political thing, you know. And the papers
added to it. Well Mike, received these things from Kirk. He was a big
receiver, and in 1970, when Eckerd ran against Kirk in the primary, Mike
not only worked against Kirk, but he was vituperative in my words, in my
opinion. Quite vituperative about it. To me, Kirk was good to a lot of
people without any strings. He was good to me without any strings. He made
a lot of us, including Mr. Thompson, helped Mike Thompson a lot. He didn't
really call)pI Vve 7) He raised a lot of money for the party
\ here in Florida,\and everywhere he went he raised a lot of money. ,\ g
b a t audiences with him, $100, $500, $1,000 a plate thing. As far as
I could, tell he took very little for himself ever. He did travel in a Lear
jet. He needed the Lear jet. I can argue the use of that Lear jet all over
the place, because Tallahassee's a rMi) -\ place for the state capitol,
and to have o (f .v \'ikeP Kirk would begin his day in Panama City and end
it in Key West. He needed some mode of transportation. But, he spent it on
fuel. He didn't put it in his own coffers. I think he was, in retrospect,
I think he was really more of a giver than a taker..
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