Now, that's real genuine leadership. I would like to mention this about
Herman Talmadge. Of course you know he came from a political family in
Georgia which you might call extreme segregationist. When I joined USIA
in the 60s they were fighting about closing the schools if integration
came to Georgia. At the end of your orientation period when you go in
the state department they ask you to go up on the hill if you want and
if you know somebody, anybody, and just tell them what you are doing and
that you're going overseas to represent your country. They would say to
go and talk to your favorite senator or representative. I thought for a
second who was my favorite senator and I thought about Talmadge. I went
to see Talmadge for the first time and I met him. He greeted me very
graciously and he said, "Bill." I said, "Mr. Senator, I'm going overseas
and I want to know what kind of message I can carry to these people
about our country. I'm going to be up against a lot of problems and
they're going to ask me a lot of questions about what we have done. One
of the things they are going to ask is why are we going to close the
schools to keep blacks from going to school with whites." He looked at
me and said, "we are not going to close the schools and you can tell
them that. We're not going to close them in Georgia." It was
Page 41 all over the paper everywhere that they were going to close
the schools. The second thing was to get Congress to commit funds to the
programs overseas. He told me he would back me one hundred percent. When
I came back they sent me to the War College. We spent a year up there.
When I came out they are suppose to have an assignment for you. In my
case they didn't have anything so I went down to The Voice
[of America] and they gave me some little routine job there. One day I went
up to see him
[Talmadge] and it was in the time of the riots. King had been assassinated
and they were rioting. I went up to see him as a courtesy, to pay my
respects. He said, "Bill, what are you doing?" I told him and he said,
"what!" He picked up the telephone and called his secretary and told her
to get him the White House. I hadn't asked for anything. He spoke to
somebody in the White House and he said, "look, I have a man here in my
office whom I have the very highest regards and respect for and I don't
like what you have him assigned to." The man at USIA didn't know who he
was talking about and he told him. He put the phone down. The
headquarters of The Voice from here was about four or five blocks so I
walked back to my desk at The Voice. It took me about twenty minutes to
get there. I had five different notices on my desk from the director's
office that said, "see me immediately." I took off that afternoon. I
called the director and he told me to get there as quickly as possible.
I went down
Page 42 and there were a whole lot of
apologies. He said, "Bill, we didn't know they had assigned you down
there. You've got to be in an important spot. Just give me a few days,
we'll have something very important for you." This was the assistant to
the director of the USIA. When I came back in a couple of days they
wanted me to do some writing for them. I said what kind and he said I
could write about anything I wanted. USIA had this system of writing
material and sending it overseas through our network. It is distributed
in all different countries. I did a column a week for them. It's that
kind of thing—I used that as an analogy—that allowed these people to do
things. On the surface is one thing but even somebody like Talmadge. . .
. When McGill died I went to the funeral. Whom did I see there? Herman
Talmadge was right there. So, a lot of these people who used political
reasons for certain things, behind the scenes they were more genuine
than some of these people who said they were for everything and don't
come up with anything.