Full Text of the Excerpt

CLIFFORD DURR:

So, I had a fishing camp down along the river and the river was not too popular in those days. I told Virginia that the best time to take a vacation was between jobs. So, we had a little Chevrolet car that we sold and we got about $350 for that and we got my brother to drive us down with some groceries and he was going to come down on the weekend and bring us some more groceries. It was spring, beautiful down there and we had spring fires. I found out where the fish were biting. We were near Clanton, about fourteen miles away. So, a fellow drove over in a truck and said that somebody, he said, "I think that it's New York, is trying to get you on the telephone and they said that it was very important and so, you come go with me." So, we went to Clanton and it was Hugo and he told me that the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was looking for corporation lawyers and they had asked him for recommendations and he had given them about a half dozen names of people in Alabama who he thought were qualified and he said that if I was interested in the job, I had better go right on up there.

VIRGINIA FOSTER DURR:

The banks were beginning to close.

CLIFFORD DURR:

I was supposed to head up the insurance program to start with, but the legislation didn't get through. So, I went to Washington and Stanley Reed was then general counsel for the RFC and he hired me. The next thing I knew, I had never represented a bank in my life and I knew nothing about banking, well, two of us set up the whole banking program for the recapitalization of the banks. And Jim Alley, the fellow that was working with me was made general counsel. Reed was appointed Solicitor General and Alley was made general counsel and I found myself, with no banking background at all, head of the program to recapitalize the banks.

SUE THRASHER:

How long was it after you left the law firm before you went to Washington?

CLIFFORD DURR:

Well, we had been down on the river for about a week.