A Word on Words; 2327; Lindy Boggs

a word on where a program delving into the world of books and there are there's this week lindy boggs talks about washington through a purple veil memoirs of a southern woman your host for a word on words mr john sigg and tyler chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university don johnson in the once again welcome to world worked when a treat i have in store for you i have a distinguished former member of congress and an author lily bart welcome to world war ii thank you so much i said nice to be repealed and an imf i'm a member of congress from for several years nine justin rice is no i know that you are you worried that you are or you know a lot of distinguished member of congress your husband as a leader for leader in every sense of the word income was honored by his peers as you will and not to mention iraq but washington through a

purple whale does the title i think mike the need some explanation at the outset and as a love little anecdote in the book about that day you went to a hearing in washington and the man hale was on the committee and was conducting military and wanted you in there the new look to lauren do when you don't know that it was nineteen forty one or are you a very young man when you were also a generation that was sung by isolationists in a hearing on the lend lease which was the phrase real act of the united states said put us into a war like posture and there was a very much for me to to come down to the hearings i was pleased and flattered that he did and anxious to go so it has slipped ana blazer over last great and swearing chopped off my love was put out my high heels a lipstick it went down you had

no credit cards and down they are your savory your driver's license had no picture on the land and as far as i can see in the cargo all these of pot people trying to get into the hearing and i went up to the young clay cook the door finally weren't plowing up and said my husband's a member of the committee and he sent to me to come down and going please take to honor guarantees that i sure don't listen but on a delighted to jazz tome put on my best of black wool suit and my black bowler hat and i'm remembering the and the nation of or one of my aunts best friends in the audience when i was going to washington who told me remember my idea that the most book coming as sophisticated thing a woman can way out is a purple veil so i went down to a store near the capital no longer existed answer the vail and go

of counter there were set of powders and those delays and said please review draper proposed bailout and i have the woman was delighted she did a very good job went back down to the same car that same crowd same young clay took off one white kid glove than i that i set it in iyengar says bodies i'd like to be seen oh yes ma'am he said i decided in there that the only way to see washington is a purple veil a beautiful it's a beautiful story and i want to learn it and i don't know something about washing it also says something about about this book because it's chock full of anecdotes that are rich with history may live and i want to take you back to your own early days each of that

i'm fascinated by the nicknames for a new family i haven't made our know i know your name is is not to win the game oh i mean i know who called you in the forest are called role in the us but those wakes in the dominant swamp bar is that part of lauren corrao new orleans culture or was not jewish so i think that that is part of the louisiana culture the southern culture louisiana and almost everybody had a nickname abu my daughter used to be a barber used to kid me all the time saying well you really lucked out you know you could've been beebe a booty and discos and so was mine had a very sweet kind of

tension of that as my dad died when i was two in the head by his name's roland my mother's name's kareem i was named karim memphis and it was in those who presided over its at that time like my father and then like my mother's know his nickname was rolling says she told me romantic role in the night linda and so and so is out ms leon story of romance early in the book is fascinating and on having known that in mind your husband when most of them for a couple years and it's a very beautiful in the federal government very much and i bought it i could never imagine hale boggs who always seemed to me first all men of great dignity no great charm great wall i could never seen breaking in a new advance first time really

does on him telling you i'm gonna marry somebody you know giant fraction that made jazz pianists alive i've been amazingly it's so worth your life in politics with him was a team that was a partnership and it is somehow it seems to me is out of politics today some of that has changed out why and maybe i'm wrong about but does innovate that as you talked about about lyndon and labor talk about nancy an assistant forty stop falling and albert gore a hubert muriel humphrey there was something about that time that strikes me as somewhat different than what we know today and it may have been that that the role of the spouse was to take one step

back that still work just as hard at it but that's ana brings me to the to the point of how the two of you really help reform we see on topics the time when it needed in the worst sort of way talk a little bit about the role of old smiles well i mean i think that the lashing dispatchers and well political spouses wherever they may be the local county state of federal level are remarkable human beings as a very special profession to be a political spouse and nowhere could that be more evident than in washington where people come from everywhere from all the well at the insistence of their spouses ambition by this military diplomatic congressional the presence of vice presidents and the cabinet the supreme court on the military and that and the city has

really made out people have agendas sometimes other than they have personally jet year ago and again and again they are in the manner in which it through the years that we were there that these spouses and again to washington life was really very remarkable and we learned so much from them and then of course people tend to i have clubs in organizations is built around and then their mutual interests and then there were sit there are such clubs in washington one i think of the most remarkable is the congressional a book as it was founded in nineteen oh eight and anthony and i'd like to tell you lost your about it congressional spouses value of

that argument and they made it a leader the house was most williams is a city in the lady's wish to farm a social and an educational cultural plan and down to be able to exchange ideas and friendship and hands sociability among themselves in washington and they wish to be federally chartered it harder to do so to give them some importance and so they had several members of congress who were several husbands who were willing to put in such a bill but then the minority leader in the house was opposed to it he happened to have a very beautiful life so she put on her pretty as parents crack down the loveliest kat and her best french perfume and went down and invited him to lunch and he was enchanted that she wanted to go to lunch with him and wow they were the lines the congressional club was unanimously charter

i'm melissa block and you really lose sight unless the husbands in the leadership of who's a republican who's a democrat i think that that's why they give some instability from one generation of congressional spouses to another year and it does provide a continuum you it was inevitable hale boggs being who he was lindy boggs mean she was it was inevitable that with the leadership qualities you both said you really interact with the powerful and dominant political figures particularly on the democratic side i read with interest that first blue collar first campaign where the barbs recently took on

and and their friends and the reform movements of took on the remnants of a unique value along machine hale boggs won that election what i had known was that he then lost in the next there's an excellent game an animal off the war and came back after serving on a pt boat is adding a god pt boat crew and serving as an awfully came back and was elected then was reelected the un and the reform movement continue that there have a new model and in chapter larson who is part of the movement like us and your cousin and hales iron law partner of course became the younger fall mayor of the city but the liveliest part i think of that whole story is the fact that of course is rupaul movement came about in the aftermath and the scandals have followed a yearlong says davis and alan

governor had gone to jail they present their state university had gone to jail some judges and businessmen and so on have really left to the young people and the women to be able to do something about it but and during the years of congressional service i hail and russell long to hear a son and i became close close and wonderful friends and political collaborate that's right end and the other thing about it is i was struck as i wrote a book about how you were able to after engaging and what must of the time though bitter political struggle of how you are able to then become friends with someone who had who have been something of a lonely and an hour i guess it had something to do with where for lack of a better term and this program

goes through our parts the country in some lonesome with southern charms about the hair but there is in with him within the comptroller has been much are still exist there a but there has been that club like friendship that transcends politics that transcends party where people a social base is an old french a basic reach out to each other and that's part of what this story washington through purple rose above and get training done my family members thought each of the hill's face introduction to buy my home which collar counties parishes my home parish louisiana was stopping prey said my uncle's house who just won her district attorney and celebrating with a winner and then being brought over to my aunt's home where her husband the incumbent district attorney just been defeated has been defeated by

and that the dolphin or there's some political campaigns and there's bitter fights among the officeholders and would be officeholders the women were always close friends they always helped each other too on each other's babies ended a siege of the sick and they're each other's dead and also to play cards together and have their social a cultural events together and data so that interview is very good training for me to go into politics well so the story is rich with the with the story's samurai and so the boy's arm around hale boggs as a young man and gain your house for dinner on numerous occasions just when he was tired and i never knew where to go and bachelor party had is his first marriage is marriage had ended jack kennedy youngster

it was close and alun billy barnes and also lyndon johnson i mean there is the story about lyndon johnson can't get chicken recipe the five and it's a moment that is the most wonderful story this is our prize and i i know in my homeland if i go beyond the gigantic because again roman catholic you understood thing in a unique way of what that nineteen sixty campaign was about an amount of much of what it was about was like kennedy's roman catholic we forget that we do that's right and the iaea if it's wrong to render them too nilsson be the years have thought about it and i think the white hot out the boy was a burning issue it as a matter of fact it was such a

burning issue at the time that american and simeon democrats wanted me to go with them and her advice for older than four years earlier they had gone with me on the station wagon campaign then that year they wanted me to go with them and they invited me to western pennsylvania which was an anti catholic and our i said don't you know i'm a catholic and they said with an anglo saxon name from the south another soul is the thing about that is that nineteen sixty campaign you tell us that sam rayburn really didn't want provide nectar and the lyndon johnson his protege was going to be a candidate and hail was the natural person to whom the gavel would be handed because usually catholic song and because all but yet they

had enlightened to do it in one k l l for this is something about the intensity and the only way the sky was so there's such a great so i guess i would say gratification to me when i became the chairman the phrase woman chairman of the democratic convention and look as i had promised to continue hails worry it was something that he wanted to do so very much and it was just that a disappointment to him fully understand the implications are and then there's a pretty well i guess is saying is everything he goes around comes around and having linney with the gavel other hand in his seat in congress some years later made made that may that true but just to talk about about the story of lyndon johnson's chicken recipe that i think that to me hey scott lasley love that chicken i am a safe rail was about i suppose for feet and four feet eleven and maybe waive at countering went but she drew on how

cell phones and that she always said that shouldn't pretend to be a cook but she did know a few recipes as she kept closed in a vast and down there was this recipe that lead the president doesn't have to have to persuade and ladybird said it didn't have a fat in it i'm healthy he was very fond of this recipe and so when he kept asking him up with a recipe and she would get a recipe and then when white out properly labor recalled it and then it got to be our vice president and down and i said i am i you know you really have to give them the correct recipe i give it to them they just don't understand at any rate we had a very hard time when he was wise person

and then happily guest the person and i said yeah man you know mrs johnson really wants that recipe so labor ago one day said to think if i could separate on the fall if she'll understand what you must sever was there could and they talked for a while and one of the funniest things that occurred was an assailant was facing you have to have a big black guy and part of the zephyr said when i get a big black cameras planted you don't get a black man can't you inherit one seed lady i discovered what the problem was when he said if he wants my chicken you've got to come to my kitchen and then there is the the moment of birth of

tragedy of an eel goes off to alaska to campaign where airplanes are is milos automobiles and sometimes warping me dies in the plane trip and in that outlet tragedy in and in that grief you're faced with a question were you in when you're on a no it's not surprising to me your money on the shipping had willingly decided yet she would do by january the main thing the far more sage was called what ever been reelected to congress and duly verified badly secretary of state to the collector house lawyers and i had no way of declaring a seat vacant under those circumstances so is not until the congress meant in january and they declared the sea bacon and then that the governor called a

special election an irs audit found myself lining i analyzed them had been asked on during those months to to run by various groups and i kept insisting that we have a congressman when he came back he was unmasked as what took a solo but that and i realized that all of those in treaties had made us a definite impression upon my thinking and so when the time came it was it was a natural thing to do i was concerned that i hadn't had an agonizing night of appraisal or something like that i have a very close friend and almonds out of morrow situations in philip hannan is archbishop of new lions and an old friend his native washingtonian and a better friend about since nineteen forty one

and he assured me that it was just a natural progression of my life was so that i have felt more comfortable than having just started writing what i i have i remember the account nearly every election you went to your opponent my guess is that everybody in that congressional district that sense new blended bob rose and when one of the most in a solo except you're leading opponent who really couldn't take a fabulous wait wait to play that was a bad day he had run for the city council and very much in the manner in which we had first come in particular group of young people who were very strong minded and

out they've done a very good job to come very close to winning and then who was still more i saw that it is still together and of course at this was an opening bid they didn't think we'd ever current that soon and that they won't they just went right into it and had some momentum going behind them from the race it just right and it was very disappointing to him that he didn't do better than that well you know we haven't had a chance to be as you said he had been in your family for generations and generations that one of you served and in public life we haven't talked and then will be able in the time allotted to talk about your daughter came mayer ran for governor was elected earlier princeton she is actually comprised of the voice of jihad i really didn't answer and then

at the insistence of the republican mayor person who told me he was retiring after twenty three years and it would be a job that was less demanding than the presidency of mesa county and she ran over selected and have a wonderful time and we haven't talked about by cokie roberts and i want a story about a marriage to speed jewish and then you talk about how times change and how the church changed as well or about your son bowe is a beautiful family in a family melanie seems to me in a very real sense to public to public service you know johnson my roots of caution tencent you're an overwhelming in season five and came from the trial and then a great public servant and try them in the house in many ways the house and only in

the last election the country gone to great upheaval some people in an earthquake some call it a thunderstorm but republicans have turned outside the power structure of the house were you certain the summit would you like a millionaire with horse hair was there and went back to the congress and sam and the truman administration when there was a veto proof house of representatives elected in forty eight and i mean forty six and then the senate of course was a father fortunately they were people like senator vandenberg in the senate you wait with president truman on foreign affairs but on a nerve and that they asked in the united states the lindy boggs harper of washington through a purple veil memoirs of a southern woman has been our guest on a word on words your

host has been john seguin dollar chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university this program was produced in the studios of wbez in nashville now