WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY
An Oral History Interview with
MORTON SCHWARTZ
Interviewer: .Anita Hecht, Life History Services Recording Date: September 9, 2009 Place: Silver Spring, Maryland. Length: 3.5 hours
Morton Donald Schwartz was raised in New York City and attended the City College of New York, graduating in 1964 with honors in economics. He earned his Master's degree in economics from the University of Michigan, and his Ph.D. degree in economics from Syracuse University.
Schwartz taught at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, for five years before moving to Washington, DC, in 1974, to work as a legislative assistant for Sen. William Proxmire. His responsibilities included research, speech and letter writing, and preparing the Senator for hearings on federal programs and legislation in commerce, transportation, international trade, human resources, and economic matters.
He also served as Proxmire's liaison to the Joint Economic Committee and the Appropriations Subcommittee. Schwartz worked on education, trade, and economic issues, and helped structure hearings and prepare questions for the monthly Joint Economic Committee hearings on unemployment and inflation.
Schwartz also headed Sen. Proxmire's Intern Program for several years and helped identify and investigate possible Golden Fleece candidates. Soon after Sen. Proxmire announced his decision to retire in 1987, Schwartz became division Director in the Inspector General's office at the U.S. Commerce Department.
Morton Sch wartz In terview Transcript 1 Proxmire Oral History Project PROJECT NAME: PROXMIRE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT Verbatim Interview Transcript NARRATOR: MORTON SCHWARTZ INTERVIEWER: Anita Hecht INTERVIEW DATE: September 9, 2009 INTERVIEW LOCATION: Silver Spring, Maryland INTERVIEW LENGTH: Approximately 3.5 Hours
KEY: MS Morton Schwartz BP Bill Proxmire AG Alan Greenspan GFA Golden Fleece Award RR Ronald Reagan
SUBJECT INDEX
HOUR1
Hour 1/00:00 MS Family Background Family Influences MS Educational Background
Hour 1/09:35 MS's Interest in Politics Politics in WI in'60s MS's Interest in Working on Capitol Hill
Hour 1/20:55 MS Beginning Work for BP MS's Interview with BP Accepting Position with BP
Hour 1/30:00 Knowledge of BP Duties as Legislative Assistant BP's Handling of Office Conflicts
Hour 1/39:30 BP's Expectations of Staff BP's Opposition to AG/Later Relationship
Hour 1/49:50 BP's Positions on Social Issues
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript Proxmire Oral History Project HOUR 2
Hour 2/00:00 BP as Boss Staff Debates Bringing Pork Back to WI
Hour 2/10:15 Origin of GFA Specifics of Hutchinson Lawsuit
Hour 2/20:00 Hutchinson Lawsuit (cont.) Supreme Court Decision in Hutchinson
Hour 2/29:25 Settlement of Hutchinson Effect of Lawsuit on GFAs Specific GFAs
Hour 2/40:05 Specific GFAs (cont.) Process of Awarding GFA Effects of GFAs
Hour 2/50:00 Continuation of GFAs After BP More Examples of GFAs Colleagues' Views of GFAs
HOUR 3
Hour 3/00:00 Effect of Party Change in White House MS's Duties in BP's Office BP's Relaxed Demeanor
Hour 3/09:30 BP's Labor Victories in '70s
Hour 3/20:25 BP's Position on Bailouts BP's Recognition of RR as Political Threat Changes in BP's Staff with Republican White House MS's Supervision of Interns
Hour 3/30:15 BP's Expectations BP's Use of Press
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript Proxmire Oral History Project Hour 3/39:30 Dealing with Lobbyists Limitations in Making Decisions on Behalf of BP
Hour 3/50:10 Passing of Genocide Convention Senate Changes in '80s BP's Retirement Announcement
HOUR 4
Hour 4/00:00 BP in Today's Political Climate Learning of BP's Alzheimer's MS's Position with Inspector General Inspector General Compared to BP
Hour 4/10:20 BP's Influence on MS BP's Support of MS's Running
Hour 4/20:40 BP's Legacy Today's Senators who Mirror BP
HOUR1
Hour 1/00:00 MS Family Background, Family Influences, MS Educational Background
The date is September $ in the year 2009. My name is Anita Hecht and I have the great pleasure and honor of interviewing Morton Schwartz on behalf of the William Proxmire Oral
History Project for the Wisconsin Historical Society. We find ourselves in Mort 's home in Silver
Spring, Maryland. And thank you very much for agreeing to participate in this project, Mort.
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript Proxmire Oral History Project And thank you for coming all the way from Wisconsin to interview me. I'm honored.
Well, let's begin with a little bit about you and some of your own background. Tell me when and
where you were bom.
I was born in New York City, in the borough of the Bronx on June 26 , 1942.
And your family background?
My family background was very typical for the New York City of that era. My grandparents
came over. They were Russian, Polish, Hungarian Jewish, who came over at the turn of the
century. Both my parents were born in the United States. My dad graduated from college and I
lived in the San Francisco Bay area late in World War II while he served as a pharmacist mate
basically a male nurse, on Treasure Island, which was one of the major naval hospitals during the
Second World War. And then we moved back and I lived in upper Manhattan - Washington
Heights - a few years younger than Kissinger and Alan Greenspan, but that was the
neighborhood. A lot of Jewish-German refugees lived in that area. I was, of course, one
generation removed, my parents having been born here.
What did your father study in college?
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 5 Proxmire Oral History Project Interestingly, they say the military doesn't have you follow through on what you majored in. My
dad had a biology degree from City College of New York.
Was he the first generation in your family to get a higher education?
Yes, yes.
How about your mother, did she study?
No. She graduated high school. I think did a little secretarial work. And again, like young women
of that era, within a couple years was married to my dad.
What would you say were the influences on you of their either politics or their religious
upbringing or your Jewish heritage? Could you identify some of those influences?
Grew up in New York City. We just had a funeral of the wonderful Ted Kennedy. You know, it
means automatically you were a Democrat. They had the Truman era, the Roosevelt era, social
security, all the social legislation; so I was influenced very positively that way about being
involved in the community and service and actually, you know, being a Democrat. Education
being very important - we were what would be called reform Jews in the sense of we followed the holidays, but did not keep all the kosher laws and, you know, went out on Saturday and ate
all kinds of food. But what is always interesting in our generation, even though we were not
kosher, you just didn't mix milk and meat at a table. But with my parents, my memory was the
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 6 Proxmire Oral History Project liberalism, the equality, with my dad, particularly, long before there was a civil rights movement
of people being treated equally and having fair opportunities and education. And he had been a
basketball player and talked about the integrated teams that he played on. And the other
impression was going in the south and seeing the other world. What I still remember about, you
know, you couldn't bring dogs in and you couldn't bring "Negroes" in. And the discussions we
would have about whether we'd go into the restaurant. And I remember one comment by my dad
in the '50s in which he said, "Mort, you're absolutely right. But if you want to eat in an
integrated restaurant here in South Carolina," I think it was, "we're going to go hungry for
lunch."
Interesting. Were they politically active, either one of you parents?
No, not really, no.
But they were Democrats in that they followed politics by reading and voting?
My dad did. Oh, they never -1 mean, that was his belief, you know, that family had served in the
Second World War and there was Hitler and all of this that, you know, "This is your duty, you're
privilege. You're lucky enough to live in a country - " And that has followed through to today
about, you know, we've traveled and we've lived overseas. And that, again, came out of my
parent's notion that, "Of course you vote! You know what our family and others have gone through to be in a democracy and have a chance to have your voice heard." Absolutely, never
missed a vote.
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 7 Proxmire Oral History Project What about his occupation after World War II?
After World War II when he came back, he was thinking of being a bio [biology] teacher, but he
went into the fur processing with his father-in-law which was, at that time, successful. It was the
second most important cleaning and processing of quality furs in the New York City area, which
really means the country. And they did that for a number of years. And my dad wanted to
modernize the business and do more appropriate things and my grandfather didn't, and my uncle
- and they said, "Okay. We're going to go our separate ways." And they did. And, of course,
luckily, my dad having his college education, thought to do other things with his life, including joining the Labor Department of the State of New York, where he became a supervisor in the
unemployment insurance. He did that twenty years; because the fur industry, obviously, has
declined tremendously with different attitudes towards furs and animals. And so he went on to
other careers by the mid '50s.
So you grew up in a — would you characterize — a middle-class family?
Absolutely, yes; not upper-middle-class, right in the middle.
And tell me about your education.
Public schools all the way - local public school; again, a perfect example of my dad. My junior
high school was very, very much a school that was a majority minority. And people found all
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 8 Proxmire Oral History Project kinds of excuses to get yourself transferred. And my dad said, "You know, you've got to learn to
live and work with people. They're going to be good teachers. You'll probably be in good
classes." And I ended up going to a junior high school that was overwhelmingly African
American. Then I passed the examination and got into the Bronx High School of Science, which
was such a switch in worlds because that was a very white, very elite public school - a
specialized school where - highly competitive to get in and highly competitive among the
adolescents there, which probably scarred some of us because it was competitive, and people
fought over grades because it was important to get into the college of your choice back then. But
it was a great education. Psychologically, probably those kinds of schools are tough on
adolescents. But in terms of the teachers we had, you know, we could have gone to the finest
private school with the quality. And then from there, you know, I won a New York State region
scholarship, but went to the City College of New York, which was free anyway. And within a
year, I was excited about economics; went into that, got my BA [Bachelor of Arts], winning
honors by being elected to the Honor Society in economics.
In 1964?
In '64. Then I went out to the University of Michigan. And again, this is a different world, the
State of New York. They had Regents graduate programs. There was a shortage of college
professors, so they said that if you promised to come back and teach - I don't know what it was
-three years or something, at least, that you could actually study anywhere for your graduate
work. It was, again, competitive based upon your grades and what you did in what was called the
Graduate Record Exam. I was fortunate enough to win. I mean, I barely won. I think I won
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 9 Proxmire Oral History Project number 240 out of 250, but I won it, and that really helped pay for my tuition when I went to the
University of Michigan. I had several schools to choose among, and luckily I chose Michigan,
because that's where I met my wife; got my Master's there.
Also in Economics?
Hour 1/09:35 MS's Interest in Economics, Politics in WI in '60s, MS's Interest in Working on Capitol Hill
Oh yes, of course. Everything I've done is in economics. And then I went off to Syracuse
University, which meant I was fulfilling my obligation because I started teaching at Syracuse
University and they gave me money and they made me an independent, young teaching assistant.
And so I ran my own classes. It was really wonderful; passed my PhD exams there. And then I
went into the job market. Interestingly, I wrote an article for a low-level publication out of
Syracuse University, not one of the major economic journals. But in doing the research, I
realized the academic market was turning around; that is, the shortages were not going to
continue, that there would be a surplus of people out there looking for jobs. And I had just gotten
my proposal in. But the point is, I went into the job market very seriously and had a couple of
good interviews. And the one that really offered me a very nice package, without my PhD being
finished, was at this Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. And, again, we were
different. Mina joined me on the interviews, which kind of amazed - "What do you mean the
wife goes with you?" I said, "She's my partner. She's going to help decide." And all the years
we were there, Mina was really a thorn in their side about raising issues which are now standard,
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 10 Proxmire Oral History Project where they'd end up saying, you know, "You've got to work more - more and more." She would
say, you know, "The faculty are kind of getting together with a cocktail party circuit. You're
going to see more and more of the women are going to have a role in where you are going to get
a team coming and all the rest." And, of course, that was a very conservative school. It was Joe
McCarthy's home town. We got active in Democratic politics there. We went to the state
convention.
So you moved toAppleton in 1969?
Correct. Sorry, yes.
Let me just ask you, parenthetically, what drew you to economics?
Oh, it was a different era then. We saw the ability to make things better; that public policy
mattered. And we now had tools that would help us do it. One of the reasons I chose Michigan - the head of the Council of Economic Advisors had come from there, a guy named Gardner
Ackley. He had worked with President Kennedy and had gotten the first tax cut through in a way to stimulate the economy - this new thing called Keynesian. Yes, there are problems in a
capitalist market, but we know how to move in the right direction. Policy matters. We are
learning. The same way in medicine - you can make people healthier, you can make society
better, fairer, more equitable. It was a very socially aware kind of thought process that led me to
it then, which has changed in the field considerably, with it becoming mathematical modeling,
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 11 Proxmire Oral History Project which has led to the disaster that we've had with the financial markets. The best work is being
done in public policy schools and not in economics departments now.
But in that day and age —
In that day and age, both strands were together. There was more and more math, more and more
statistics, but it was still very much social science. And my education reflects it. I took economic
anthropology from one of the most famous people who ever did it, as a graduate student in
Michigan, as well as advanced statistics and econometrics. That just doesn't go very much
anymore. So that's what drew me. I always saw myself as applied economics - dealing with, you
know - what's happening with the distribution of income? What can we do about poverty? How
can we improve public services? - which is what, you know, I later did with Proxmire. So that
was always what I wanted to do - applied public policy economics. And I believed then, and a
little less now, that our tools gave us some pretty good answers.
And so did you follow politics pretty closely as well?
By?
You know, electoral politics — who was in office, who was supporting what —
Oh, yes. Oh, yeah.
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 12 Proxmire Oral History Project So when you came to Appleton, tell me a little bit about the political scene in Wisconsin at the
time. This was McCarthy's home town.
It was pretty shocking to us. We learned a lot. There's some wonderful people we met. We had a
lovely coterie of friends. But the politics there, meaning the Democrats, were a distinct minority.
And both Mina and I were very much involved, Mina even more so because I had my teaching
duties. For example, with the McGovern campaign in '72, we got to the State Democratic
Convention. But I was not running for office and I was not heavily involved in the politics in the
sense that we went to Democratic functions. I did get to go to the State Convention, but it was
not the major focus. My teaching and my research, honestly, were - this was part of our lives and
quite honestly those were the kind of people we enjoyed meeting in a town that was very
conservative.
What did you know about the Senators of Wisconsin in that day? In 1969, there was Proxmire
and Nelson.
Yes. And they were beloved. They were almost above partisan politics, for different reasons.
And Gaylord Nelson seemed like the nicest kind of guy. Prox was this terrific maverick, unusual,
was his own man, nobody owned him. And so from the world I knew of them, it was extremely
positive. And somebody else who I knew, because he was an economist, was Les Aspin, who
was a Congressman from the Milwaukee area; had a PhD in Economics from MIT
[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]. And he was the one who at some point later in my time there -1 was saying when I was thinking about leaving - says, "Your background, your interest,
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 13 Proxmire Oral History Project you style - come to Washington." And he's the first one who made me think about, in some
capacity, coming to Washington. He didn't particularly push the Hill. He said, "It's an action town. It's wonderful. Knowing you a little bit, come to Washington."
So you had already started thinking about leaving academia at that point?
This is about the third or fourth year out of the five, yes, yes.
And why? Was it less effective than you had hoped, or teaching wasn 'tyour —
The teaching was wonderful. I loved doing it. The best way of describing it - the day we left, we took our kids and we were heading to Washington. I had accepted the Proxmire job. And of all
places we were where Purdue in East Lafayette, Indiana, and the movie of the night wherever we
were in the motel was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? And we sat there laughing - the petty
politics of the University. We chose the wrong environment for ourselves, not the wrong
profession. Appleton was a mistake for us. Lawrence was a mistake - wonderful students who I
got along with very well, but, you know, we ended up saying that's straight politics. And again, I tried to do it in my own way. As you know, after the famous killings at Kent State, the campuses
erupted. I was not a radical, but I believed we needed to protest. I became head of the movement
and the protests, but always in a meaningful way that wouldn't turn people against you. I had
done the same thing at Syracuse, where I was involved with student activities and graduate
activities. And the one that pops to mind because it's become famous later - a stupid fraternity
had invited George Wallace to be the speaker for whatever the heck they called it. And, I mean,
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 14 Proxmire Oral History Project clearly this is this racist who's setting up for running for the Presidency. And people say, "We've
got to do something about his speech." And I said, "You know what we do? As many of us can,
go. And then when he starts his ugly rhetoric, we stand up and we turn our backs on him, or
maybe we walk out. Don't interrupt him. Don't make a demonstration," because Americans, you
know, you have a right to have your say. "Don't do that." Of course, I lost in the battle. And I
said, "I'm not even going to show up. You're going to be wrong. The publicity's going to go the
wrong way." And the radicals just loved it and they took over. And of course, there's no video. It
was film then. And people screaming and running around. And all of this, George Wallace is treated very sympathetically. These bunch of radicals interrupt his speech at Syracuse
University; got national attention on it. And it's the same thing with the protests when we got to
Appleton. There's a photo somewhere of me leading it. And I said, "We're going to petition,
have people sign about this war as idiotic, and we need to do things about it." That's the
American way - not disrupting traffic, not throwing rocks threw the window of the recruiting
[office] for the military. And I'm very proud of- we got, even in Appleton, thousands of
signatures on a, you know, not very specific but, you know, "This war is going in the wrong
way, and obviously there are bad things happening in our society." I can't remember the
verbiage. We worked carefully. And one group of students did go and did kind of demonstrate
and did block. But ninety-five, ninety-eight percent behaved very, very well, and I was very
proud of that. So I was involved in things like that. I don't view that as particularly Democratic. I
mean, there were lots of people who may not have shared some of my political views who thought that what was going on was the wrong direction in America.
Hour 1/20:55 MS Beginning Work for BP, MS's Interview with BP, Accepting Position with BP
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 15 Proxmire Oral History Project Not Democratic, meaning partisan Party politics?
That's right. That's right.
1974 you mentioned as the year you came to Washington to work for Proxmire, but give me the
background. How did this all come about?
Oh, well. In all honesty, because I had not completed my degree, it led to an extremely difficult
situation for everybody there. I had - and it's sitting over there - an award from the student
body, but my activities like this one and others had upset some people on the - I believe - on the
Board of Trustees. And they made a decision, which is legally their right - "We're going to terminate you because you didn't finish." I had been on the understanding that I had another
year to finish the dissertation, which I probably wouldn't have anyway. I had grown
disenchanted with it. But this led the students to be very upset. So it was not a good parting. You
know, that's the record. And the students were unbelievably supportive. The student newspaper
had editorials about me. It was not pretty. And I did some academic interviewing and some of it
was very good. But the Les Aspin breakfast - you know, Washington's exciting. I'm teaching this stuff. Why not do it? And so I ended up setting up a bunch of interviews. I was going to be
interviewed at OMB [Office of Management and Budget]. This is right around the Watergate time. Nixon is still the President. And I had an interview with the Labor Department, an
interview at OMB, and an interview with the Congressional Research Service. Someone who I think has since passed away, a guy named Larry Longley, who was very official - he was the
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 16 Proxmire Oral History Project County Chairman of the Democrats - said, "You know, Mort, you ought to go in and at least talk to Gaylord's staff or Prox's staff." And I said, "Nah! I don't do that kind of stuff." And he said,
"You know, particularly Prox is, you know, a lot of economics, and look at the committees he's
on. You know, why don't you at least go over? I'll write a letter of introduction for you." He
writes a letter of introduction - and this is the truth in my memory - I've got this letter. Do I
show up there? It's truly not even in my mind. With the friends, "How's the interviewing
going?" "It's going great." And then, you know, Larry Longley will say, "Did you go into the
Proxmire . . ." So I stop in, and that's the beginning of getting the job. And life is serendipity.
So he was accessible? You were able to walk in?
It wasn't Prox.
It wasn't Prox?
I didn't meet Prox yet. I had met Prox, but the way you do politically - a Democratic function
back in Wisconsin. And I still remember the conversations to this day. So Dee Jessup, who is one
of the finest human beings, great in her job, ends up saying, "Wait here a minute." And out
comes Howard Shuman. And all of a sudden, it's becoming ajob interview. And I said, "No, no,
no, no, no. What do you think of- because you use a lot of the CRS [Congressional Research
Service] work - would I be frustrated if I worked for the CRS?" And Howard keeps saying,
"CRS does good work, but would you be interested in working for Proxmire directly?" And I say
something that - people will tell you stories about Howard - "No, I'm not a political being. I
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 17 Proxmire Oral History Project really want to do good, intellectual, honest analysis." Howard says, "What do you think we are?
This is Proxmire's office. Do you know my background? I have all of these graduate degrees, too. I taught economics. You see ..." - Tom van der Voort had Ivy League and stuff. "See Ron
Tammen over there? PhD from Michigan. Do you think we're political hacks in the Proxmire
office? What do you understand? Are you interested in a good office or not?"
So they were looking for somebody at that moment?
And the irony is, in retrospect, the story that I've been told, Prox comes out of a Joint Economic
Committee meeting and the staffers give him briefings and stuff. And he had studied some
economics and Howard had done economics in World War II. And he said, "You know, the things that [they're] presenting to me, you know; they're wonderful, terrific staff there, but do they have an agenda, too?" You know, today's world there's a lot more economics. I do a lot of
economics. And Howard, I think, was a little insulted by this over the years, by it. "I need
someone with the same technical economic knowledge and policy knowledge as those Joint
Economic Committee economists that I work with, but that person is mine."
That's what Prox was saying?
That's what I'm told he said to Howard. Therefore, when I showed up, Prox had said, "The next
Legislative Assistant, I want you to look for somebody with technical economic background."
And I show up. Had I shown up a week before, a week later, who knows? And that began the
process. And we had the good interview, I guess.
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 18 Proxmire Oral History Project Do you remember that interview?
The part that I just described, yes. I remember how much it was Howard kind of asking me, but
more selling me. And then it ends with Howard saying, "We'll probably be getting back to you."
And I go, "Yeah, yeah. This is a political office. They make you feel good." But it was
interesting. I was impressed by the people, as I've been for the past - over thirty years; meeting them. And I go away and I literally mention to my wife and where we're staying how this
interview - Howard Shuman, the Senator came out and we had a wonderful conversation, said they might be interested. End of story. End of story. And I'll never know, because he's now
passed away, what he did to investigate it, but the OMB thing, maybe working, the Labor
Department - I can't remember what the division would have been - things are percolating for a job. And also I was interviewed at Trenton State down in New Jersey for an academic position,
which didn't excite me. I get a phone call. And it's one which I'll never forget, because you're
not supposed to interrupt a class. And my students remember, on my side and we're going through this ugliness. And the Secretary from the Social Science Division comes up and says,
"Professor Schwartz, sorry to interrupt you."
So you 're back in Appleton?
Back in Appleton. And how much later is this? No more than several weeks, a couple of weeks -
"I have to interrupt you, but Senator Proxmire's office is on the phone." And, you know, I said,
"Okay." And the students are all abuzz. And I go down, and it's Arlene Branca - typical of the
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 19 Proxmire Oral History Project way Prox does things - "Day after tomorrow, can you show up in Green Bay? Prox is going to
be there. He wants to interview you," and made it clear it was for ajob. And I said, "Of course."
And I come back and, you know, because my students were so much on my side, that I have to tell them, you know. And I said, "Well, I really am getting ajob interview with Senator
Proxmire, himself." And the students started applauding because they had been part of saying,
"This man should not be let go." I started boning up at the library for this interview. "What is he
going to ask me? My God, I don't know! I'm not that current on all the issues in Washington!" I
meet Prox at a restaurant that I cannot remember. And again, being it's Prox, it's something like
maybe lemonade or iced tea. Obviously it's not a beer, it's Proxmire. I remember being
interrupted several times. I see Prox in the back, which is interesting - clearly in conversation,
but it's still Prox. They walk to the back to shake his hand. And it's Prox, the way he's been for the entire time.
Hour 1/30:00 Knowledge of BP, Duties as Legislative Assistant, BP's Handling of Office Conflicts
He begins by shaking hands and said, "You must be awfully good. You impressed the hell out of
my staff." So he made it clear from the get-go - "Let's move it along. If you present well the
next few minutes, I'm going to offer you ajob." I mean, that was the way he did it. I mean, I
knew this wasn't bull that, "You impressed the hell out of. . ." -1 think he may have said,
"Impressed the hell out of- "But you really impressed my staff." And he asked me some things,
you know, about my politics, you know, have I ever done anything really wrong and been in trouble and a little bit. I never knew what Howard, you know, had asked. And he gave this
question: "You know, is there anything in your background which would be embarrassing?
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 20 Proxmire Oral History Project Now, if you come to work for me and you know what it's like working for me and it's going to
be . . ." He goes on to describe what he'd like to see me do for him. And this is after no more than five or eight minutes of conversation. And I answer the best I can. And he says, "Howard,"
or something like that, "was right. Like you. You're articulate. I like your background. When can
you start? What do you need to be paid? We'll work out the details." And it's Prox. And I said,
"I'm honored Senator, but I can't accept the position immediately." "Why not?" I said,
"Senator, you say you want me to be honorable? I'm in the middle of a semester. These students
expect me to finish the semester. I cannot walk out." And he immediately said, "You're right.
Sorry about that. Obviously, when does class get out? I want you right away coming to
Washington." And I still remember the idea, you know, in his mind, he's finalizing it. "I've got to move onto other things. This is my new staffer. Hope he can move in two weeks." But I said,
"I can't do that." So this may be April-ish. And I said, "I've got to talk to my wife about." And,
of course, I mean, it was fabulous. And the final details were worked out in salary, not with Prox
directly, but -
Did he match your salary at Lawrence?
No. No, he did not. He gave me a fifty percent raise. I mean, it's a whole different world, you
know. I knew what I needed to be paid. It would be the equivalent of a GS-13. It was fair. The
pay in Proxmire's office was never good, never bad. It was fair.
Let me ask you another question.
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 21 Proxmire Oral History Project Sure.
Was he interested in your politics? Was it important to him that you were a good, liberal
Democrat?
No.
Was it more about your academic background than your political views?
Yes. He asked me more about my - what I had done, you know, my teaching, my interests. I
don't know if he knew about my activities in the War in Vietnam, that I had been at the
Democratic Convention. I mean, none of that came up - none came up. It was really, you know,
more about - maybe he asked me what I thought about Keynesian economics. It was really quite
professional. But that only lasted about five minutes. Then he went into a sales pitch. The whole thing lasted under twenty minutes, and I had ajob offer from Prox - work out the details.
What else did you know about him at that time? Did you know about any of his pet causes?
Oh, yes, of course. I mean, he was my Senator and the hair transplants and the jogging. You
know, all of that was -
So you knew that, but did you also know things about his daily speeches on behalf of the
Genocide Convention? Anything like that?
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 22 Proxmire Oral History Project No, no, no, no; did not. The mindset was unbelievably honest, unbelievably hard-working,
fiscally conservative, socially liberal. I'm not sure I was even aware of his stand on abortion,
which I never agreed with. I saw myself from the get-go as being very compatible, and I think that's the only way you can be a Senator's staffer. You have to be overwhelmingly in agreement
with his fundamental outlook - not every issue - but fundamental outlook. And the fact that he
had, you know, done public policy. I knew that. I knew that he was not a lawyer, to be honest
with you. So I got up on individual - as I said, the day of the interview. None of that came up.
None of that, "Well, what do you think about extending the higher education bill," or, "What do
you think about..." - because I would be doing education for him - "education of the
handicapped." None of the specifics came up - general outlook on economics and public
policies is what I remember our discussion being. And then, as I said, so quickly swung into,
"And you know you'll love Washington if you like music and art, the museums." It was a sales
pitch! And the interesting thing, which I'll never know, is what did Howard do to check me that
it was so positive? And I guess it's worked out.
So you moved to DC in the summer of '74, is that accurate?
Yeah. As soon as school ended, you know, we came. We made a trip to look for a place to live.
And just to get the arc, you started in 1974 and stayed until 1988?
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 23 Proxmire Oral History Project So this is fourteen years of your career we 're going to talk about now.
Yes, yes.
1974, you enter his office as a Legislative Assistant.
Yeah.
Tell me about the early days and the hot topics and your duties.
Well, the first meeting is - new staffer, technical economics, comes out of academia, let's see
what we can do with him, what he could be valuable in. And right away - and it led to a little bit
of conflict. Howard was his liaison with the Joint Economic Committee and was proud of it.
"Well, he's going to assist you on this, Howard, and you can't be in on it - and all these other things as my Administrative Assistant." And some of the things - he introduced me to the
Banking Committee. And he said, "I'm on the HUD [Department of Housing and Urban
Development] and Independent Agencies Appropriations, and I want to see you helping on that."
And, "I really need [you] on trade issues and commerce and business issues with your economics
background." And that began our discussion. And we just really had to carve out what I could
do. And something that was a conflict was, of course, Howard saw himself, you know, as the
Joint Economic Committee man.
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 24 Proxmire Oral History Project So you were sort of encroaching upon his turf, in a sense?
Yeah, a little bit. You know, nobody else had similar academic training to Howard until I came
in.
You showed up. Did Prox get in the middle of that conflict at all?
Absolutely not. Prox never got in the middle of conflict. He had a management style - in a small
office, I guess, it worked fabulously - big office, I don't know about. He never wanted to set up
conflicts. "You work it out. I don't want to hear about it. You bring it to me I'm going to tell you to work it out. You're all on a team. We're naysayers. We're the people who are saying, 'no' to
colleagues on amendments and stuff. We've got to work together because, you know, there's a
lot of people out there who are against us." And that worked, whether it was with my interns
later, it was the notion of the office worked it out. Nobody got any more credit than anybody
else. You helped each other. The cardinal sin, unlike other offices, if you said, "Can you give me
some help?" it was expected you'd give people help, because he wasn't going to go, "Ooo. You
did well. I don't. . ." You know, "We (emphasis added) did well. We pulled it off. We worked together as a team." And so it was always this sense of, "Work it out. Help each other out if things go badly." And there'd been a couple of cases where something was going wrong and
people needed help. "What does it take? Let's help get it done. We're on the same team." And that was always his point of view.
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 25 Proxmire Oral History Project Did you know much about his personal history at that point or what was going on in his life? I'm just curious as to where he learned his management style or if there's something you can point
towards in his past that would give us insight into the way he ran his office, the way he treated people, anything that —
Hour 1/39:30 BP's Expectations of Staff, BP's Opposition to AG/Later Relationship
He really didn't like real conflict. He was very private, wanted his own time. He had this high
expectation of self-motivation and self-fulfillment - do your job, do it well. If you need help,
come and get it, but work. And one of my best stories on that style where it's perfect with the
idea of modern public policy - it's outcome and not input that matters. And this was not because
I was trying to look good. I am scared. It's my first major hearing. And what did they have me
do with the Joint Economic Committee? There were pricing issues about the steel industry. So
working with an economist who stayed my life-long friend, we prepared a hearing which brought
in the top executives of, at the time, very powerful organizations - US Steel, Bethlehem Steel.
And I'm really trying to be ready. And Prox, of course, went every weekend back to Wisconsin.
And Sunday afternoon he showed up. He would be coming back to the office to check on things
and all the stuff was put on his desk, and I'm in the office. I'm not there to impress him, even though I know he's coming back. I'm scared. I'm re-reading my notes. I'm making notes. I don't
want to be in the house. You know, I've got two small kids running around and my first hearing
is coming up. That's why I'm there on a Sunday afternoon. And Prox said, "What are you doing
here?" And I said, "Well, you know, the big hearing's coming up." And he said, "You've been
working on it for weeks." "Well, I didn't get all the testimony. It didn't come until Friday." And
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 26 Proxmire Oral History Project he wanted to make it clear, "I'm not impressed by your showing up on a Sunday. I'm going to be
impressed by what kind of an introductory statement you give me and the kind of questions. And
I'll remember that for the rest of my career. All the others, "I'm here, ten o'clock at night,"
didn't impress Prox. And again, maybe people who knew him earlier - because I come mid-
career. That impressed me no end.
So he expected you to do your job, but not to sacrifice all your free time.
Well, this is something that should go on the record. He was wonderful toward me about that.
There were times I'd say, "I'll stay tonight, Senator." He says, "I've done this dozens of times,
Mort. Telephones work. Go home. If I need you, I'll give you a call." And he would let me go
home. Now, getting together with the staff over the years later, they pointed out he knew I was a
family man. I was really the only, at that point, LA [Legislative Assistant] with young kids, and
he was a little less likely to let other staffers go home. He was aware. He knew my kids. He
knew Mina. And it was true, you know. I'd give him all the memos and, you know, hardly
anything really came up. But other people he would have sometimes stick around longer than
me. I think he thought I was competent, but it was, "If, on balance, I can let Mort go because
he's a family man." And down through the years, some of my former, wonderful colleagues have
said, "You know, there was a little resentment. You were going home before other people when there were issues on the floor in your own area." But where other offices - nine, ten o'clock,
maybe something's going to come up - no, not in the - Proxmire went home, too.
Well, he was a family man, too.
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 27 Proxmire Oral History Project Yep.
Tell me about Prox in hearings. I know you had said that one of the early hearings was with Alan
Greenspan. Maybe that's a story you could —
Yes. One of my earliest assignments was to work with the Banking Committee, but it fell under
me -the hearing for senatorial approval of the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors
goes through the Banking Committee. And again, early in your career Prox said, "You're the
academic. This is one of the things you're going to take on, do the Greenspan hearings for me."
Alan Greenspan was being appointed to be the Chair of the Ford Council of Economic Advisors
in this turbulent time after Nixon had resigned in disgrace. I was aware that Alan Greenspan's
background included as a very young man being a discipline of Ayn Rand and the extreme
individualism of Ayn Rand. It was very popular on campus. It was the idea that people of great talent were dragged down by public programs in the sense of, "My taxes - all my effort is being
misused by people ..." - I have to say not undeserving but, "who have not earned the way we
have contributed." And one of the famous ones is, "What if all of us who really contribute, who
all these people literally hang onto, decide to revolt and not do the work one day? They'll learn they can't push us around. They need us. But we don't do that because we're creative. In spite of
what they do to us, we're going to be these great contributors." This is the Ayn Rand philosophy
poorly presented and a little bit biased. Greenspan had written articles for the publication of Ayn
Rand's little group when he was in his twenties and they were quite libertarian - progressive
income tax is a form of expropriation, there's no such thing as monopolies, and antitrust doesn't
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 28 Proxmire Oral History Project need to be done; laissez-faire which, in retrospect now, even Alan Greenspan admits when he
kind of applied it too much in his last years as the head of the Federal Reserve System, he may
have gotten human nature a little wrong with some of these people in the financial area. So I
prepared this. And it was very interesting. Alan Greenspan, who is an incredibly bright,
incredibly fair man, and doesn't let - he kept saying, "Yes, I wrote that. Yes, I believe it, but it's
not my job to try to roll back progressive income tax." And he went through all of this. And
Prox's view was, there had been, just around Nixon in particular, too many ideologues. And he
said, "I'm going to oppose this guy, Mort. You did a great hearing." I said, "I didn't intend for
you to oppose him. I intended for you to put him on warning, because he really is fully capable
of doing his job and can do it very well. I know his background. He's very bright. He knows the
markets." And he said, "No. I think we need to send a signal. You never know when this
fundamental belief may rear its head and have negative consequences." And so Prox opposed
him, not strongly, said, "I'm going to vote against him," and he gave a speech why. And, of
course, Alan Greenspan was overwhelmingly -
Approved.
Approved overwhelmingly. A few other Democrats - I don't remember the roll call vote on Alan
Greenspan, but that was one of my early hearings. And again, always with the hearings with
Prox, he followed through beautifully. He made us look good by - you know, Greenspan would
answer. It wasn't always in my notes. He would follow up and ask him very insightful questions
of Greenspan. Later he and Greenspan, I think, had a very good relationship. Greenspan never
held it against him, you know, on this voting. And as I remember it, and I didn't do that hearing,
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 29 Proxmire Oral History Project I believe when he became the Chairman of the Federal Reserve system, Proxmire did not vote against him as I remember it. And they worked together very well over the years when
Greenspan was the Chairman - not of the Council of Economic Advisors. That was just for about a year when Ford - but now when he was elevated later to the important job of Chair of the
Federal Reserve system. So that was one of my early hearings. And again, Prox was wonderful in that early hearing with the steel industry. And I thought it was a very effective hearing.
So in this particular case, what you had advised him on he didn 't heed necessarily, with the
Greenspan hearing. Where there instances where, let's say, you might have changed his views on something? Can you remember having an influence on his stance?
Oh, boy. We may have to come back to that.
Okay.
Because I've got to think about it because he was very strong -
Well, think about it. We can come back to it.
Because the tendency was he listened very carefully and he'd make up his mind and he'd respect you, but he respected himself the most on all of these things. And there's things where I disagreed, let him know, argued. And maybe the ones that always stick in your mind are the ones
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 30 Proxmire Oral History Project that you lost with him. But I was upset when he chose to reverse his position on voluntary school
prayer, for example.
Tell me that story. What was his position?
Hour 1/49:50 BP's Positions on Social Issues
Initially his position was being, you know, somewhat, "Do your own thing." He does come out
of this idea of, you know, self-awareness and actualization and that nobody stops you from
praying in school if you choose to. The moment an exam paper's being handed out, you're
praying that you do well and then you pray you get a good mark, or whatever you want to do.
And one of the things as a Legislative Assistant that you did is you work with the legislative
correspondent staff in creating what were called robo letters - the standard letter. People are
writing in on these standard issues and you create - if you're for it, you get a standard answer. If
you're against it, you get a standard answer based on the Senator's position. And Prox was
always honest about what his position was. And when I got there - again, this is tied into school
-1 thought I helped write a very good letter which said, you know, "There's no prohibition
against praying in school. And I believe that, you know, religion and prayer are important in
families, around the family table, in your church or synagogue, that's where it belongs." And it
was just a beautiful letter. I was very pleased with it. He was pleased with it. But there is a very
powerful group in Wisconsin that kept leaning on him. And I kept fighting it. And one day, I
remember it was on a phone call - it wasn't even face-to-face - "Mort, you're going to be re
writing the robo on voluntarily school prayer." "Why is that, Senator?" "I'm here in Wisconsin .
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 31 Proxmire Oral History Project . ." - and I always assume that he must have been with a Catholic group or something, I don't
know. "You know, it's not so horrible to have a voluntary school prayer." "Senator, let me re- . .
." "Mort, we've gone over it. When I get back, I want it rewritten in favor of voluntary school
prayer." I rewrote it; discussed it with him again. And he said, "Hey, Mort, the Senate ..." I
said, "Wait a minute. I know that Senators sometime act like children in a playground, but they're not, Senator." And after a little bit, says, "Sorry, Mort." And there were a number of
instances. I mean, those are the ones I remember because there was an amendment that came up,
and I can't remember what it was. And I said, "You know, this is spending more money, Senator,
but let me give you the reasons why I think you should vote for it." And he listened. And the
vote didn't come up. And now we're at what's called a conference between the House and
Senate on the spending on an appropriation. And he's called to the floor. And so they break. And
I go, "Now, Senator, remember, we discussed this amendment." He says, "I know what it is,
Mort. It's okay. It's okay." Comes back, and I said, "How'd the vote go?" He says, "Well, it
passed, but I didn't vote your way." And I still remember that to this day. In other words, "I
didn't beat it down, and I know you made some good arguments for it, but I didn't vote the way
you would have voted." And he made it clear - he was the Senator from Wisconsin. I wasn't.
And you always had to be aware of that.
So in the case of the voluntary school prayer, it sounds like he was representing his constituency
on some level, or he was acting pragmatically rather than ideologically? Would you say that's a fair assessment?
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 32 Proxmire Oral History Project Both; all of the above. But one of the few things you learned is that things like that, things that
are very symbolic, don't really matter that much, are easy to throw in the direction of people who
feel strongly about it, because if you do something like that and you don't do it properly, the
Supreme Court's going to knock it down anyway. So these are like free chances to do something
favorable to certain groups. I'm not saying about this on something like abortion, but voluntary
school prayer. Now Prox sometimes did stand up. And I watched him over the years. And I'm
not sure it was my influence, because all of us with the idea about the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms - over time, he became more and more a believer - "Well, I'm against
murder in terms of abortion, for reducing the possibility of a nuclear holocaust, and, you know,
we've really got to be somewhat reasonable about - particularly police and safety people - with
people around guns." And you just discovered again, things about symbols -that sometimes
Prox would take on a symbol, which hurt him with important people. Because I happened to be
in a meeting - there were these things called "cop killer bullets." These were these Teflon
covered bullets. And again, I know these people are very strong and they raise money by raising
issues -the people were saying to me, "You know, Prox can get himself in a lot of trouble. He
seems to be moving more and more away from approving of the Second Amendment." I
remember saying, "Cop killer bullets? What? Do you hunt with Teflon . . ." And they got angry
at me. And Prox said, "You know, you don't need these. I'm for your hunting. I'm for this. I
don't understand this with the Teflon . . ." "But Senator, it's the beginning of restricting our
absolute right with arms. We're really going to be angry with you. We're not sure we can fully
support you next time." And he said, "Well, all the police have asked me to do this." And again,
in many ways, minor issue, tremendous symbolism, but in this case, he took on a very important
lobby that got mad at him over something - I don't think many people get killed with Teflon
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 33 Proxmire Oral History Project bullets and I don't think many police were, but it was this mindset of the absolutism of the
Second Amendment, and he was moving away from it, particularly because police groups were
coming to him. It's really fascinating how, on different issues, people get influenced.
So he was able to navigate into different positions given political expediency?
Yes. And there were times when, you know, we all would have liked him to be - and over time I
found that when staff- not just Proxmire's staff- really disagreed, there tended to be very
powerful political reasons - not ideological, not policy, not what you firmly believe - one of the things I'm just going to say, I remember, is Eagleton's staff member who I was very friendly
with saying, "Eagleton stands alone against his staff on the issue of being what they call 'pro-
life. ' And the staff, particularly the women, just won't even talk to him about it." They agree on
everything else. And you can understand why, but - and I said, "Yeah, you know, it's terrible."
And he says well, she knew Mrs. Eagleton and commiserating with Mrs. Eagleton one day says,
"Let me tell you, when he comes home, he knows that's one issue -1 don't want to know that he
voted that way, either." And Tom Eagleton was a really fine man - tremendous pressure on you.
You don't always really believe that, but for your political life you feel sometimes - and that's
what they do more and more now. These special interest groups are very powerful and
frightening.
So in Proxmire's case, was he quote/unquote "pro-life? " you think because of those political pressures or was that a personal belief, or is it not something that you know?
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 34 Proxmire Oral History Project He had a nice story on it, and I must accept it on its face value, that his father was a country
doctor. And a young woman would get pregnant and he would help to arrange for her to go
somewhere to have her baby, not destroy her baby. My view, and many of the staffers were, that
may have been somewhat his sense, but it also was in a time of great pressure, politically
expedient in the state that is conservative and very, very Catholic. And it's one of the few things
where I was uncomfortable having to defend a Proxmire stand when I was - you know, I'd go to
a general meeting and I didn't always focus on that, but questions would come up - "Mort's
representing Prox," and this would come up. And it was not my view; has never been my view.
And it's one of the few as a staffer where I was uncomfortable. The voluntarily school prayer
annoyed me, but in general, I knew he was fiscally conservative. I could see this might have
good benefits, but it had costs. But in general - not in general - almost overwhelmingly, I was
unbelievably proud to represent Proxmire and his positions. I wasn't embarrassed to represent his
positions.
And that's where we 're going to end hour one.
HOUR 2
Hour 2/00:00 BP as Boss, Staff Debates, Bringing Pork Back to WI
Okay, we 're now on hour number two on September $ , 2009; my interview with Mort Schwartz.
You were just commenting off tape about the loyalty of the staff of Proxmire. Tell me a little bit
about what you were saying.
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 35 Proxmire Oral History Project He was such a good boss in the sense that with his own structure, one of the worst things is to be
surprised, to have Senators who want things done right away to end up saying, "Oh, you know, I
know it's eight o'clock at night, but I think I'm going to give a speech in the morning." Prox
would have come in late morning, saying, "Tomorrow I want to give a speech on - get it done today." He was planful. So that you felt the tension of being under pressure to get it done, but not
surprised that often. Now, working in the Senate, you're always surprised. Things are always
coming up unexpectedly; the nature of the amending process and all one hundred Senators
having such great independence. He also treated you fairly in the sense of when you didn't have
something to do, you went home. And he went home. So you had a sense of another life. This
was a good job and as Prox always said, "Get it done during business hours." In addition, he was
respectful. He might not agree with you, but he really heard you out. He thought he had a bright
staff and they were worth listening to. That didn't mean he followed you, but he listened. He
absorbed. He debated with you. So it was a good job.
Speaking of debates, you had also mentioned one of his practices.
Yes; one of his practices, which was remarkable. In preparing for re-election, we were
scrupulous about not getting involved in that process because he didn't raise any money -
another thing, by the way, why it was great working for him. Somebody would come in. They
didn't own your Senator. You were proud of it. Proxmire represented the dairy interests, of
course. That's Wisconsin. But on the other hand, no interest groups owned him. But one of the things we prepared him for was debates. We were staffers who knew these programs perfectly.
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 36 Proxmire Oral History Project You know, the way you do it is you look at the bills and then you look at the Committee reports
and you prepare and you summarize. You know it, particularly if you're working for Proxmire,
because he can ask you a question at any time. Then you debate him on very tough issues that
you - YOU - thought in your areas his opponent might be able to bring up and challenge him on.
And you prepared the notes if you wanted to. You walked into Prox in the office, sometimes
with some of the other staff, sometimes all alone. And you then gave him the toughest shots you
could. He would respond. He would take notes on what you said, but he didn't prepare. He didn't
know if Mort was going to talk about education today or trade issues. And he wanted that kind of
intellectual challenge just like, you know, a great athlete preparing by practicing hard.
Did you debate him on any particular issues that you remember?
Oh, yes. The one I got him on - because he had been a Senator for so long, we discussed
voluntary school prayer. There were a couple of others where I searched the record on a certain thing, and it's some amendment he may have voted one way that you could interpret it as being
for a program. And usually this is why when these groups break out of voting record, it's usually
part of a much wider web of decision-making on a bill. But I was looking for what were real or
apparent contradictions in Proxmire over, at that time, twenty plus years in the Senate; sort of
contradictions. And certainly one I do remember bringing up is like voluntary school prayer, you
know, flipping on this and that - "Where you say you're so consistent." But I wanted some fun.
And I said, "You know, you're a dried out, old prune who's served too long up here and you're
full of wrinkles and contradictions." And we went at it. And the word went around the staff - "a
dried out, old prune, Mort said!" (laughter) He didn't like that one, you know. But I remember
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 37 Proxmire Oral History Project real - and this one actually Prox said after, "Is that right? Did I really? You found that in '72,1
voted that way on that amendment?" I said, "Yeah, Senator. I don't know the context, but I really
was doing . . ." what later was now, by the way, part of the political process -the negative
research. So I was doing an early version of it. And this may have been for the ... I don't
remember which - maybe the '82 campaign.
How were his debating skills?
Fantastic. The man had a razor-sharp mind, and he was always well prepared. But, of course, he
had this wonderful, self-deprecating line, and he'd say, "You know, Mort, you know how many times I've debated on this issue? You know how many times I've argued about higher education
support? If I can't do this and know it cold, I've been sleeping up here for twenty-five years." So that he was superbly confident. The only thing that worried him on the debates, and even on the
Golden Fleece - "Did you bring results?" And what they would say is, "You didn't deliver the
pork." And Prox was not a very good porker because he wasn't compromising. He wasn't
someone who said, "I'll give you ten million dollars if you support mine of five million dollars"
- the famous log-rolling. And in fact, a wonderful story that's a little out of context - when you
begin to mark up an appropriations bill, the staff for the head of the Committee asks for, "What
are you going to propose?" "We're going to plan an agenda. And some of them we're going to
bring right to the Chairman and maybe we can agree right away." And I'll still remember this
one - a guy named Terry Lierman - I don't know if - you probably - he has done Democratic
politics and others - he was from Wisconsin originally, but he worked for Magnuson. He says,
"Well," and all the staff is sitting around a table, and he says, "I got. . ." on health education
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 38 Proxmire Oral History Project bills, "three billion dollars worth of add-ons," let's say. "Oh, yeah. And for more on behalf of
Proxmire, five hundred million dollars in cuts." And everybody laughed around the table. That
was typical, you know. But that made it harder to bring home the bacon. What happens if the
next time Prox says, "You know, I'd like to do something for a lab in Madison." It's harder to
do, because, "You SOB [son-of-a-bitch] you opposed my amendment, which would have added
money to my state." And it is very difficult to be the naysayer and controlling the purse and
being able to be a porker, and ironically, the way politics works. This was not being a porker.
There was a Poverty Institute that I think is still in Madison. The Nixon people wanted to cut it
back, cut it out, because they tried to change criteria. They did all kinds of things to try to stop
Madison from being funded, because it tended to be liberal. I mean, heck, worrying about
poverty is, you know, an issue that some of these people didn't want to focus on. And finally they just said, "We're just going to get rid of it," you know. And then we went and we fought,
like any good porker. We weren't porking. This was - had won in every competition. This did
superb work on these important issues in our society, and it happened to be in Madison. And
ironically, we won. We won that battle. It was turned around. Now it's never turned around
directly by the person in Wisconsin because - but the issue that's raised quietly, you know -
"Proxmire's no different than anybody else. When it came time, he was a porker too. He saved this money for this left-wing organization." That was the word that went out. So you're damned
if you do and damned if you don't. But one of his few weaknesses was - "Was he effective for
delivering the bacon?" And the answer is probably on good programs, in helping you with your
social security, on projects that are already there, to get it to through the red tape, we had a
superbs there. We did a good job. And we were respected and you didn't want to get Proxmire
crossways with you. But where it's political log-rolling, not the best project but, "If you vote for
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 39 Proxmire Oral History Project mine, I vote for yours," he didn't like it. He wasn't comfortable. It didn't fit his image and it
didn't fit him personally. We didn't do very much of that. So you know, the things you read
about the Senators and the Congressmen from Pennsylvania or West Virginia or other places -
we didn't do it and we probably couldn't run the office the way we did and be good porkers.
Hour 2/10:15 Origin of GFA, Specifics of Hutchinson Lawsuit
And I think in the long run, America and Wisconsin were better for the Proxmire approach,
because of course when it mattered, when it was being unfairly treated, we'd go after it. But we
really upset Senator D'Amato, because I was at Syracuse University. He was writing language
where I know third-rate programs were being written - there's a way you do it with report
language and stuff- for Syracuse University. And once you do that, how do you ever have fair
competition for grants and programs? It all becomes who has more political muscle. Yes, there's
mistakes that are made by the bureaucrats. So you do need a political process. It can't just be the
bureaucrats. But you gotta make sure the relative weights are fair to the system. And with the
D'Amatos and others and what's happening now, you know, good program analysis is irrelevant.
What matters is who carries the lobbying weight and the others. And I think that's detrimental. I
would hope Syracuse has good programs and they should win in some of the competition. And
when the competition is biased, that's why you do have Senators and Representatives and you do the right to petition, go after it, go after the bureaucrats, make sure it's being treated fairly and
getting a fair share. But to just say, "I don't care about the competition. I don't care if there's a
better program in X. I represent Y. Y should get the money." That's not good public policy.
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 40 Proxmire Oral History Project No, not at all. And what's interesting, I think, is that even though one of the criticisms of Prox is
that he didn 't bring home very much bacon, he was wildly supported for many, many years by
the constituents of Wisconsin. So they didn't seem to hold it against him at that level.
That's right, that's right, because he did so many good things and he always had the personal touch. He was always there. He always was planning and he always knew when he had visited,
so he off-set that. So you're talking about, you know, everybody has an Achilles heel, but I sure
wouldn't want to battle Achilles, you know, in classical times. I'm not sure I can get to his heel.
Prox, in this area, that was a fair critique in the purely political because, as I said, I know of
battles that we fought and won where Wisconsin was not being treated fairly, was being
undercut. That we would fight for. And, of course, he did represent the dairy interests, but to a
point.
7 want to get us in a chronology a bit here. I'm aware that 1975 was the beginning of his famous
Golden Fleece Awards, and you were right in the thick of that. So is this a good time maybe, to
move to that part of his politicking?
Yes. He saw that as really part of his on-going notion of rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in
government. And he wanted it with, for the most part, a bit of a lighter touch. And he wanted
examples that people could grab onto that would be sometimes cutesy. And I got annoyed where
people did not see there's a deeper message; that a bureaucrat who, you know, has been twenty
years distributing money doesn't think about it, you know, falls in a pattern. And other people of
power fall into a pattern of accepting. And we see this going on all the time. So there really is a
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 41 Proxmire Oral History Project message that it's real money. And sometimes the most foolish choices are being made because
it's part of a system or they're people who are abusing the system. And so we did all of the
above kind of Golden Fleeces. And it was real pressure on us, because typical of Prox, he wasn't
going to give an occasional Golden Fleece. He wanted it every month. And then he wanted a
Fleece of the Year - a big one towards the end of the year. And there really is pressure, because
you tried to save some of them for the next month, because there were sometimes dry holes at
any time. Because the worst thing was to have one where I may have disagreed with it. And I
probably was more a naysayer on some of our Golden Fleeces than other staff members, even though I tended to be closer to being in charge of it because many of my interns worked on it.
And he turned to me kind of the more academic, non - you know - long term staffer at the
beginning, who's part of -1 almost, by default, became his devil's advocate sometimes. And it
annoyed other staffers. And even the famous first Golden Fleece I wasn't so sure about and he
loved it. He worked on that one.
So tell me about that. Let's talk about the origins of this award.
It came out of, as I remember it, the hearings through what then was called Labor - HUD
Independent Agencies [Department of Housing and Urban Development] - the appropriations
hearings, because you'd get lists of what projects were being given out. You know, because you
look at it. It's your role. And Prox took this role seriously, and it's not being done well enough
again, now - oversight. You pass a law. That's not nearly the end of your job as an elected
representative. You are supposed to fairly do oversight hearings. It's the nature of our political
system - oversights. And Prox loved that. And, you know, he wanted wonderful examples that
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 42 Proxmire Oral History Project would grab the public and even his colleagues. And he then decided back around March or
something to formalize it. And the name came from someone who had been an English Classics
major, I think at Princeton - Tom van der Voort - the Fleece - Jason and the Fleece - Golden
meaning the big one and the top prize being gold - gold medal in the Olympics, tying into the
classics. And so it became the Golden Fleece Awards, and it really kind of fell on me to help
research them. And the irony is, of course, very early on was a very famous one, which led to this lawsuit.
This is the Hutchinson lawsuit?
Yeah. And that one was meticulously researched. There were no factual errors. And in fact,
when he sued, we originally thought the Justice Department - but this is the Justice Department that had fought the Pentagon Papers and, you know, it's coming out of the appointments that
were all of the Nixon - not many Ford people. And it really was on the advice of Tip O'Neill
from the House and the Majority Leader that we should think about independent, outside council.
So just give me the broad strokes of what happened. What the Golden Fleece was for and why you were sued for it.
This was someone who was what I would call an academic entrepreneur. He had had a number
of different grants and contracts from the National Science Foundation, from the Office of Naval
Research, from NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration], always finding away
of saying, "I'm studying animal behavior. I'm going to give you real insights into why people
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 43 Proxmire Oral History Project become angry, how they become angry." Because on a submarine, you can't have unbridled
anger. Astronauts can't have unbridled anger. And basic science research - NSF [National
Science Foundation] - each of them he found a way. And he went through the animal kingdom,
and had ingenious ways of getting animals angry - you know, shocking a monkey. "And how did
you measure how angry?" "How hard it would bite down," so it'd appear to be scientific. And the guy did a lot of these experiments. And that was his research. And this is early days in the
Golden Fleece. The error that was made - and it was wrong - which should have been directed
strictly at the funding agencies: no comments about the person. He has a right to try to do his
research. The bad decisions were the decision-makers who gave the money.
Hour 2/20:00 Hutchinson Lawsuit (cont.), Supreme Court Decision in Hutchinson
And that was the lesson learned.
That was the lesson learned, and it was a proper lesson. And Prox loved to use - one of my ones that was not as controversial was a wave machine. Certain kinds of money were used coming out
of the Department of Interior and out in Utah, a city in Utah not only built a pool with the money
but one of these fancy wave machines. You knew it was going to open about, "The Taxpayers
Wave Goodbye to Your . . ." and "Maybe People Are Hanging Five, But We're Hung Out There
To Dry Where Our Money's Being Wasted." All of these cute expressions we loved to use.
The verbiage was to be cute.
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript AA Proxmire Oral History Project And many of them. When you read the actual Golden Fleece, there's a lot of that. And in this one
we used the same thing, where we talked about the good doctor, you know, and used
expressions, which cast aspersion somewhat on him. What he actually did, how he spent the
money, I footnoted every one of them when we were sued and showed it to the Justice
Department. And their lawyers checked it and said, "We'll represent you. You are factually
correct."
And you were actually also personally named in the lawsuit?
Yes, yes. The name of the lawsuit fully - I'm "et al" - it's Hutchinson versus Proxmire and
Schwartz. And the reason being back then, I wanted to give the man a chance to defend his
research. I called him. I spoke to him about the research, so he knew it was me. And the NSF
people I called directly and discussed it with them. Now that was turned around to meaning
intimidation of the NSF, because I asked tough questions. If I'm going to attack it, I want to
know what the NSF is going to say to defend it. Well, in the mindset of the lawsuits and the
lawyers, this is intimidation. "This is an attempt - and the truth is - are you saying you should
not fund this research? Are you not indicating a disapproval by a powerful Senator?" And the
answer was, "Yes, absolutely. We didn't think it was good research and we're going to question
why they're doing it." Now, the court decision - we won overwhelmingly at the district level,
overwhelmingly at the appellate level, and then they asked for what's called en banc - the entire
appellate court should review it. It got turned down. Then they went to the Supreme Court, and
surprise, surprise, the Supreme Court said it would hear the case.
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 45 Proxmire Oral History Project And what was going on in your mind and in your family at that time?
Well, in some ways, it was surrealistic, because we're being sued for six million dollars, and there was this TV show called The Six Million Dollar Man, and then he upped it to eight million
dollars. And it all seemed preposterous. But our lawyer, named Alan Raywid, said, "Mort, I gotta
lay this out to you. Technically, Prox can indemnify you, yes. But this man is saying if he wins the case, that you are liable, along with Prox. And under the law, he can go after you. And you
ought to know they can't take the house because it's in both your and Mina's name," and went through everything about the fact that if he won, and he won against me too, that, you know, he
could collect money from us. And Prox, you know, said, "Don't worry, Mort." But it was the
better part of three years of my life. And then, of course, to sit in the Supreme Court and hear
you, literally - me - being discussed by the Justices - and I still remember; they knew it was an
important case. It went on for two hours. Usually cases are an hour. And I remember the Justices,
even Justice Marshall, when our lawyer was asked - it wasn't by Marshall - "Well, you're
saying that we cannot reach the question of this misbehavior by a Senator of possibly defamation
of character, and tortious interference - "at all; that the Speech and Debate Clause completely
covers him. Well, what recourse does a citizen have?" And our lawyer said, "The recourse is through the process that the Senate has for reviewing and then punishing its own. That is the only
way that it can be done." And I don't know if there was a comment from the Bench which says,
you know, whatever they said about in light of, you know, how many recent miscues there were
and whether or not the Senate really punishes its own. I mean, I could see Marshall kind of, you
know, "This is nonsense," you know. And I thought our guy presented well, but there had been a tremendous debate among the lawyers about whether we should go for that absolutist position.
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 46 Proxmire Oral History Project And the answer was, "We are representing not just Proxmire and Schwartz. We are representing the institution. And we should have Speech and Debate clause broadly interpreted; therefore
we're going to take the view that it cannot be examined." And then, of course, I still remember
getting the word that the decision was coming down; went over there and heard the verbal
presentation, raced to get a copy and said who I was, and immediately - there's no cell phones then - calling Howard and said, "We lost. We lost badly." "Mort, you're upset." "Howard, we
lost BADLY." And we did. And I think, to this day, what is ironic is all the Law Reviews - The
Harvard Law Review reviewed it, many scholars reviewed it - almost universally came down - it
was a bad court decision - way too much weakening of the Speech and Debate clause in the
modern world. Essentially it said that whatever you say on the floor is protected and then the
Congressional Record is protected. Whatever you say in a committee, pretty much protected. The
committee reports, verbatim reports, pretty much protected. Reproduce it, press release it, get
interviewed on it - even if it's verbatim - it's where you say it, not the circumstances. And so I
understand that, you know, a young Senator or someone just elected to the Senate or the House
gets all this explained to them, that you so weakened - now, we still have the truth if it went to a
decision. We think our facts are absolutely true. There was hyperbole used in describing the man
and his work a little bit, but that's sort of, we said, kind of the license of, you know, in the give-
and-take of not just Speech and Debate, the rough and tumble of the First Amendment. But that's
not what the Court ruled. That literally, by distributing the press release, the words of that press
release, which is verbatim what Prox said on the floor of the Senate, is not protected. The second
ruling was that I was not protected. Even though we showed that I wrote questions based upon it,
it was my research, they said that certain aspects of your staff are narrowly protected. Others are
clearly part of the legislative process. No one denied it, but that it was not necessarily protected.
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 47 Proxmire Oral History Project And on a seven-to-two vote - Brennan being one who voted in favor - I still remember that.
Can't remember who the other one was -1 was not protected. My conversation with Hutchinson,
my conversation, all of that research - and to this day, I still am -1 mean, I'm wondering if I was
a staffer again, you know, what clearly delineates my investigation, my looking in - but we lost.
Did Prox then indemnify you somehow?
Legally? No, no.
So what was the fallout, then? You lost.
Hour 2/29:25 Settlement of Hutchinson, Effect of Lawsuit on GFAs, Specific GFAs
The fallout, then, was a series - it went down - the Supreme Court ruled that it should be
reviewed in light of their decision. And negotiations then began about, "Could we settle the
case?" And these went on for a long time. And interestingly, in the settlement, Hutchinson
wanted to make sure that whatever was the settlement included me. He was very much, you
know, "Don't drop Schwartz. I don't want him dropped." Now, obviously in all this time I've
had depositions taken. I'm at the lawyers' office and it's time-consuming. And Prox had wanted
it cleared up long before his next election. And we never remembered who put a particular verb
in or who put an exact phrase - three people clearly worked on it: Prox, Mort and Howard. And
finally, and this is an interesting one, we did not intend to say that Hutchinson made a fortune out
of this. So very carefully, what we said in hyperbole about the man, Prox was willing to say he
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 48 Proxmire Oral History Project didn't intend to say he actually made a fortune, which we never intended anyway. But we didn't walk away from our conclusion about the quality of the work, but we said perhaps duplicative, which meant, you know, the guy is going on and on and studying all kinds of animals with different things. I knew it wasn't exactly the same work, but I wasn't sure how the science was going forward to really understand, you know, what makes people angry. I mean, you shock an animal, it's going to get angry. How is that really giving you insight into an astronaut who's been up on a - you know, we can debate it still. We didn't deal with that. Hutchinson insisted that the verbiage be given on the floor of the Senate, and that almost screwed it up. Because Prox said, you know, "I am not going to formally sign a document, you know, I'm agreeing to this. We'll agree to this settlement and I will make a floor speech but I will not have it written in. I am a
United States Senator." And Hutchinson, "(mumbling sound). " Finally, the lawyers, his lawyer and our lawyer, got together and agreed - the lawyers agreeing to be honest. The settlement, you know, was that we agreed we wouldn't talk about it again, and I guess now thirty-five years ago you can reopen the case. It wouldn't be discussed. You know, the usual things with a settlement.
And there was other things. It stipulated ten thousand dollars, which covered his costs and Prox was willing to pay that, and then everything else was going to be dropped. But the papers would be filed in Washington, I guess, in Lansing I think it was, the capital. And our lawyer had to physically see Prox speak - he didn't want it in the Congressional Record. He wanted to know
Prox got up there and actually spoke the words. I mean, it's not part of the settlement. I mean, it is, but -
Sort of apologizing, or —
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 49 Proxmire Oral History Project It's not quite an apology.
And saying his intention wasn 't to defame him?
Yes, yes. No, I never said defame him. I mean, he didn't say that. It was not to intimate that the
man made a fortune.
And he didn't want damages, then, other than reimbursement of his legal flees?
He did. He got ten thousand dollars out of it.
Which is much different than six million or eight million.
Yeah, but that was all - and he became famous in the field. He later was substantially
investigated for - and it's kind of interesting. He was someone who really was - someone who
knew how to work all the levers of academic people getting research money in different ways,
very clever about it, but he was someone who was willing to go to the edge. The Inspector
General of the State of Michigan actually audited him for the way he handled funds. And he
never was convicted of anything. But it ended with our lawyer getting on the phone, calling his
lawyer and said, "I have physically sat here and watched Prox at 11:02 make that statement."
And then they filed the settlement papers together.
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 50 Proxmire Oral History Project So interesting. And it didn't stop you all from continuing? You learned the lesson, but that was
really at the very beginning of these Golden Fleece Awards.
Yes, we gave it - it was about the third Golden Fleece in '75. And he sues. He has a year to sue.
He sues in early '76 and the Supreme Court's about '79, and '80/'81 -1 can look - is the
settlement.
And during that time, these Golden Fleece Awards continued to come out every month?
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Prox would never walk away from that. None of us would. Now,
since we're telling the stories for history, Howard Shuman said, "Don't settle. Have it settled in
court. Fight this guy all the way." And one day Prox says, "You know, what is it with Howard
with his bug about fighting it all the way?" And you know, I looked at Prox and he says, "Well,
maybe because his ..." - maybe he did say this word - "his ass is not on the line." He didn't tend to curse that way but, "It's certainly not his reputation, his money, on the line." And I said,
"Probably, Senator." I mean, I don't want to get in the middle, but Howard was annoyed about the fact that we settled it - "Fight them all the way. Never give in.'"
And in this case, do you think bad publicity was good publicity in terms of the — was there much publicity around this lawsuit that got the Golden Fleece Award even more on the public's radar?
Yes, yes. It was written up in a small way that researcher/Senator - but at many levels, when it
went through the different levels court and becomes an important Supreme Court decision, it
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 51 Proxmire Oral History Project made people more aware. I mean, academia was not happy with the Golden Fleece. And I said that's why I was very pleased that the academic law journals overwhelmingly thought it was a
bad decision. No. Prox was asked, "Do we make any changes?" And he said, "No, not at all."
Not in giving the Golden Fleece, not in being tough, not even in the colorful language, but now it
was properly directed against the government institution, the government bureaucrat, not the
individual. And in my mind, looking back on it, I think it was a good Golden Fleece, unlike some
others that I disagreed with, but we were new at it and we were wrong. I don't think we tried to
interfere with him contractually. I don't think we defamed him.
But you were wrong in naming a specific person.
In naming him specifically. His name should never have appeared in there, and making fun of
him - making fun of his research is fine, but not intimating things about him.
So that particular one you did agree with. You just mentioned that there were certain ones that you did not agree with. Tell me about one of those perhaps.
I've got to quickly find some of those. Let's go back to the first year. I know there's a -
Well, we can pause for just a second.
One in my own area was a National Science Foundation where they were beginning to test
supply and demand in laboratories with animals. And there are questions about that but we ended
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 52 Proxmire Oral History Project up saying that, you know, these concepts of supply and demand were well proven and "Why are
you doing it in the animal kingdom?" But this was the beginning of important research, which
has led to an entire field called Behavioral Economics, Experimental Economics. And this is one
where I said it was quoted out of context, and as I remember from my notes, actually even though I disagreed with our giving the Golden Fleece, I think I kind of worked on it to make sure
it read properly. And later, private sectors, from what I remember - we went back and looked at
if any of the Golden Fleeces had an influence - this is one that began to be privately funded for
awhile. And I can't remember who funded it, because it really - and so you can say we won the
battle, but now private funding was doing it. But in some ways, it proves the case that this
direction of some research in economics was moving beyond the traditional lines of research of
economists. So again, life and things are ambiguous. We won, and yet we were wrong to win
because this has been a - and I really want to be very careful.
Hour 2/40:05 Specific GFAs (cont), Process of Awarding GFA, Effects of GFAs
Some of the questions about animal behavior in economic research is questionable, but it is a
worthwhile strand, which is about a hundred and forty-four thousand dollars. And to me, it's
looking at it, but it seemed like a really cute one. We all know supply and demand works. You
know, go back to Adam Smith, and we wrote it that way. But I've always had this feeling that it
has become an important field and was becoming an important field in economics. And people
said, "Well, let them do it other ways." I can't remember all the debate. But others - since we're
coming up at the end of the hour - some of them are beautiful and perfect. An early one
involving the example of a bureaucrat abusing his position, and the name here - we did use the
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 53 Proxmire Oral History Project name that was proper, because it was a bureaucrat named Frank Zarb, a former major business
person who was Ford's energy czar, and we were having all of these problems with people
wearing shirts and then sweaters because we were turning the heat down and lights were being turned off. You know, this was this period -
Energy crisis.
Which was the Arab oil boycott after the '73 war - Israel and the Arab States. He [Zarb] didn't
like to fly commercial. And I got wind of it. I don't even remember how, because how did you
always - you know, the interns worked on it. Somehow we found out that his travels were very
high cost. Why? And we found out he was having chartered planes fly him from speech to
speech to speak against wasting fuel. We've got a fuel shortage! The gas stations are all closing
up, but he doesn't want to fly commercial. His argument back was, of course, his time is
valuable and he's doing important work. But we saw that as, you know - even now, you know,
recently we've had people do this, you know, where these executives fly in a private jet to beg the government for billions of dollars to save the automobile industry. Get on a plane like
everybody else! You can fly first class. And Zarb made a point of having meeting with Prox and
me. The Golden Fleece was - because this was a day where you'd announce it and his staff knew
we were asking all these questions about his travels, and they'd have to give you the information.
And Zarb was trying to let us know what important work he was doing. He never brought up, "I
hope you're not going to attack me on this." And Prox never volunteered. And he left the office
and we released the Golden Fleece. And I thought it was a good one early on.
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 54 Proxmire Oral History Project And tell me a little bit of the quip that went along with it that you rolled out in the press release.
Oh, but of course. It was, "Don't be fuelish," which was also from the Ford administration. So this man was being 'Tuelish" to fly that way rather than flying with his staff commercial.
So when you rolled out a Golden Fleece, how did it work? Did you call the papers? Was there a press release sent to Wisconsin?
This was another era. Prox would hold it for release and would always make a floor speech about
it. He wanted it in the Congressional Record. But this is a different world back then. Literally, the pieces of paper that I have, were run off on amimeo machine, prepared, and let's see if I
have some of the originals, here . . . here it is. "For release after 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, January 12,
1982 for pin's." And the papers abided by this so they would have the information available and
Prox - I'm not sure about on this date whether they were back in session - but if they were in
session, he would make the verbatim presentation and then would release the material.
And who picked it up? Was it the national papers?
Wire. Over time, it even was on national TV, depending on - and very much the local area. One
of my favorites, again, was an EDA [Economic Development Administration] grant in Bedford,
Indiana, where this was a poor area and they had a lot of limestone. And so they gave money to
build tiny replicas - not tiny. I mean, you know, compared to the Great Wall of China it was tiny
- but a replica, a scale replica of let's say -1 can't remember the distance, so I may be wrong - a
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 55 Proxmire Oral History Project hundred yards, that looked like the Great Wall of China. But up on top, you know, the walkway
and where they raise it. And then since that wasn't enough to bring in people, they spent more
money building a replica - this was much smaller - of the Great Pyramid in Egypt; using the
limestone. And it was a monument to the limestone. I mean, that was picked up all over the
Midwest heavily. People actually came to visit the site now. We really gave them good publicity.
They wanted to see a site that had become a Golden Fleece. And that struck us as, you know - I
mean, EDA projects were very often - that's Economic Development Administration - easy
pickings. And in fact, Prox tried to follow up. He said, "Prepare an amendment." And we tried to
bring an amendment up. And I remember he kind of surprised me. I worked hard at it and gave
all these examples and others - and, of course, it was such a wonderful boondoggle - talk about
pork! I mean, you're the Congressman from this area or you're the Senator and, you know, this
project, this Economic Development Project - there were just so many bad ones with the EDA.
And Prox got thirty some odd votes as I remember. And he walked away off on the floor with
me. He said, "We didn't do very well, Mort." And I said, "Senator, this is the best pork for
everything! I'm amazed we got thirty some odd votes!" "Ah, we should have done better!"
That's Proxmire.
So in retrospect today, to you think that the Golden Fleece had a positive effect, in general? Do you think there were real criticisms of it that you shared?
Yes, because you had to be careful that you don't ridicule something out of context. And we tried hard not to do it. We not have always succeeded. And Prox also, and I think this - we gave
positive Golden Fleeces, too, that hardly got any publicity, interestingly.
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 56 Proxmire Oral History Project Oh, I don't even know about that.
Yes. It's in the list. I worked on it; worked on it carefully. And I'm proud of what I picked out.
We gave it, for example, for the building of the Aerospace, for the two hundred years of the
nation. They built it on time; didn't break down, you know. It's still up there running. It's doing
fine. That was one that received a positive one. There was some research from the National
Science Foundation dealing with studying the - ironically, Prox gets Alzheimer's - on working
on the regeneration of brain tissue. I mean, we're still dealing with this. We're looking for the
stem cells. This wasn't quite stem cells, but the idea of - can we get cells to regenerate,
particularly brain cells? And I favored that kind of research and that was important research. And
so we wanted to say the NSF did a lot of good things in esoteric, you know. People didn't want to pick up on that. They wanted ones that appeared to ridicule. But the bad thing that happened
was everything that - cheap shots that were taken - everybody thought they were Golden
Fleeces. Seven hundred dollar toilet seats - that wasn't our Golden Fleece.
Interesting.
And everybody quotes it as being ours. And there really was some just changing of titles, I know,
for some sort of research. But I really do believe that - and I found out later when I got into
government work, that, for example, IG [Inspector General] reports -1 began to work for the
Commerce IG, ironically. Some of the stuff I got on the Economic Development Administration
came out of their reports. The leverage of, you know, an IG report, the top bureaucrat - "Oh,
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 57 Proxmire Oral History Project thank you, Mr. IG." Now, maybe Congress gets a hold of it and does something with it, but we
began to say that there really are some people who are also looking at how effectively programs
are running. And I know when I started to work for the Commerce IG - Inspector General - he
got, in the broader community, good publicity because his work was being listened to and
followed. Now, what effect did it have? Well, the Economic Development Administration has
gone away. We've won some. But it has had the downside of-that cheap shots can hurt things that are of value. So that, you know, the one example that I gave that's very close to me as an
economist is you gotta be careful about anything in life pulling things out of context.
Hour 2/50:10 Continuance of GFAs After BP, More Examples of GFAs, Colleagues' Views of GFAs
But I would think that over the years the Golden Fleece stands up to scrutiny quite well, and did
bring to attention, you know -1 will end with this. We're about to stop. I got to sit in on the
National Science Foundation hearings. That is how he decided I get it the economics - [editor's
note: to hear the technical panel review of NSF proposed projects]. And one of the things I sat in,
somebody commented, "This is the dumb kind of a research that if we fund, Proxmire's staff
would pick up and give us a Golden Fleece." And the stupid outside expert, the academic -
everybody looks at him and somebody quickly passes him a note. And the guy looks over. You
know, there's a handful of people on the side of the table, they're NFS people generally, but there's this guy, Mort Schwartz. And you could see. The guy looks down at the note and looks
up and stares at me, this academic. "Oh, my God!" you know, "of all the things to say!" And he
said the right thing. He said, "This was such a stupid proposal that if we funded it, Proxmire and
someone on his staff would grab a hold of it." So obviously it had some effect.
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 58 Proxmire Oral History Project It had some effect.
That's a positive one.
What's the legacy of it been? I know it stopped with Proxmire's departure from office, or
somebody took it on?
Yes, and I'd rather, you know, they have followed up. But it's got to be followed up not to be
against government spending. People see it as, "Government wastes money." Prox says, "Don't
waste money. Spend it appropriately. I'm not against government. I'm not against the Defense
Department." And that distinction's often lost.
I see.
It's as though they waste all the money. It's all corrupt. They're all wasteful bureaucrats; rather than, "How can we run this government better to be more responsive to people's needs?"
Because they get captured. They all do. All of our institutions get captured by the people they're
supposed to be working with. And so I was impressed when I visited the NSF on how hard they tried to do a good job.
So you think it was taken over by the —
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 59 Proxmire Oral History Project Common Sense Taxpayers -
The Taxpayers for Common Sense?
Yeah.
And it doesn 't come out monthly anymore?
I don't know.
The danger being that it could be co-opted by anti-government rallying?
And also that, you know, people do this with visuals too. I mean, you want to say, "Hillary's
campaign isn't going well. She's exhausted." And you snap a picture of Hillary. The story that
you want to write is, "Hillary is tired. Her campaign is tired." You'd get pictures of Obama or
pictures of McCain. You do things out of context. You manipulate them. This is something you
have to be very, very careful about. We tried - there were times, I don't know if we were fully
successful -1 mean, the Department of Commerce, they didn't know what to do with their EDA
money and they have to give the money, so one that I love because I visited Hawaii - twenty-
eight thousand dollars to study surfing beaches. To me, that's a Golden Fleece. I mean, do
something! I mean, I've been there. You know, the natives - there are issues of poverty. There
are better projects. Give the EDA money for a community center. Why in the heck did that
money go - it doesn't mean you don't need local projects being funded by the central
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 60 Proxmire Oral History Project government, but you don't need to study surfing beaches. There are thousands of, "Hey, man, I
heard the waves are great over on the North Shore." That, to me, was a great Golden Fleece that
we found.
And in terms of the outcomes or the impact then, did you all research what happened to these programs after they were given Golden Fleeces?
Yes.
Were they dismantled? Was the money then —
Well, the National Science Foundation wasn't dismantled.
Well, I mean the particular funding for that surfing beach project.
That was all too late. You see, some of it, there's nothing you can do about it. In other cases, we
looked into it. For example, we gave it to the architect of the Capitol - talk about biting the hand that feeds you. We gave a Golden Fleece to them where they, you know, the new offices became
gold-plated and the money, you know - kept getting more and more expensive. And we fought
for limiting the staff. And some aren't reining in this guy who was, you know, building an
incredible empire. I mean, I guess he's a builder. He's an architect. So I mean, there were some,
but some of these - you know, in retrospect, the Presidential Inaugural Committee - you know,
some of the things that get carried away. It's done. They've spent the money. You know, and a
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 61 Proxmire Oral History Project lot of good things we found were not - were not - in the Golden Fleece. It was all part of an on
going campaign to look for wasteful spending. We'd go after it. So that if you look at all the
hundred or so Golden Fleeces, how many had full, direct effects and how many did not? I mean,
one of the ones, you know - this is a perfect example of one I really liked that I worked on - was
a guy goes down with a professor to Peru. And to this day, I have a feeling that maybe the
original funding is tied into CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] as well as NSF and others,
because they were trying to study social relationships among these descendants - the Cusco
[Peru], the Indians. And I wasn't against that. Ah, but the young researcher's got to get out his
publication. He's on the grant. What does he do in the evening? And he's down there under
government money as part of the grant and not - you gotta be careful - it's also part of it. He's
also doing the good research, but to get his own publication out, he's got a great idea: social
relationships in the brothels of the mountains of Peru. And he gets publications out of it in
anthropological journals. And its conclusion is kind of interesting. Obviously, the ultimate thing
is the same - they're prostitutes. But in the early evening, the workers are coming in and it's
business. And in the late evening, the middle-class men come. It's almost like a salon - and so the social relationships -the whole way the set up of the same brothel, two hours later. It's
interesting, but why should it be part of, you know, an NSF grant? But again, this is what starts
happening. And it turns out the man who was the head researcher had written a book literally
called, Being an Academic Entrepreneur. How you look to the hot areas that the government was
willing to fund. And it dawned on me when I read his book later, he knew we were worried
about communism - Shining Path, if you remember all of that in Peru - quickly - (whispering)
"Hey, let's get a proposal in. Let's get down to Peru. Let's say we're going to study it." And I've
always wondered how good his basic research was. Certainly, I'm very happy that I gave a
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 62 Proxmire Oral History Project Golden Fleece to the additional research. Admittedly, how much of the hundred thousand dollar
grant -1 mean, he's already down there, and how many drinks he bought -1 don't know. But this is an example of, you know, you don't have control of the money when you fund these
different things. And you want to dump money into whatever it takes to stop communism in
Peru. But I couldn't directly attack it. So this is a good catch. So this is one - how do you put it -
eighty percent good, eight-five percent good? But that's the story behind that one, which always
struck me as - and we were really careful about writing that one up.
Well let me ask you, because we have a couple minutes on this tape —
Sure.
How were they viewed by his colleagues in the Senate?
They were jealous. They said, "Bill, you've got a great angle to get some great publicity, and it
fits your style." You'll be speaking to other people. I thought they were envious of us, because so
many of them were good. And again, it tended to be conservatives would try to do their own, but they tended to be ideological and cheap shots. The Department of Education does something
wrong. We gave Golden Fleeces across the government, and not overwhelmingly to the Defense
Department, and not overwhelmingly to academia. In fact, the EDA, as I've described it, was so
poorly run and I knew that there were a lot if Inspector General reports. That's actually how I got
my job. They had heard of me. I had heard of them. And I became his congressional liaison
person when Prox announced his retirement.
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 63 Proxmire Oral History Project Well, that's where we '11 end this hour.
HOUR 3
Hour 3/00:00 Effect of Party Change in White House, MS's Duties in BP's Office, BP's Relaxed Demeanor
This is now hour number three on September $ , 2009 of my interview with Mort Schwartz. And let's talk a little now, Mort, about 1976 when Carter gets elected, and how and if that changes things in the office.
I asked Prox that - we had a victory celebration. The Democrats, of course, had won the White
House. It'd been a long time. And Prox had been re-elected very strongly. And Prox, as you know, was very careful about his eating and he had very little of the victory cake. But as it was ending, I had this concern. I'm still a fairly young staffer: were we going to cut them slack? I mean, it's now a Democratic administration. We want them to do well and they're on our side.
So I said to Prox, "Well gee, with the new administration coming in and Democrats and Carter, are we going to, you know, be a little more careful about going after him?" He said, "Absolutely not! Bad spending, bad government, bad Republicans or Democrats. Absolutely no change!"
And later I know that during the time that Carter was President, in many ways, Prox had
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 64 Proxmire Oral History Project tremendous respect for Carter because he was so bright and intellectual. They shared kind of an
analytical approach to things.
Did your work change then, though?
No.
You were continuing to do the Golden Fleece stuff. And what else were you involved with?
I was doing some of the JEC [Joint Economic Committee] hearings and working on
appropriations issues. And now we were working with people of our side a little bit more in the
bureaucracy. But quite honestly, my job didn't really evolve much until later. I took over the
running of the internship program. And then when Howard left, I fully took over being liaison
with the Joint Economic Committee.
And what year was that? Do you remember?
Early '80s Howard retires. And I can't remember the year I took over the internship program.
Larry [Patton] had been running it.
Well, I think there was another question that I wanted to ask you that had to do with a bad
speech and one thing that you had mentioned about Proxmire as a boss.
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 65 Proxmire Oral History Project Yes, it reflects how Proxmire treated staff. He always prided himself on not getting angry. And,
you know, he knew his colleagues and many of them publicly berated, cursed, privately berated,
cursed - that was not Proxmire's style. And even when he had to turn me down for a trip, he
said, "No, you can't do that if you're a Proxmire staffer." He said it very nicely, not, "You idiot.
You would have gotten me in trouble." But in this one, I wrote what I thought was the
appropriate speech that he was going to be delivering back at one of the technical colleges in
Wisconsin. And I prepared it and sent it in. And Prox called me in the office and I see him
writing away, scribbling like crazy. And I said, "I see you need some changes." And he said,
"This is not what I need, Mort. This is not what I need." "I'm sorry, Senator. Tell me what you
want me to change. I'll take care of it." "It's okay. I'm taking care of it. Thank you." And clearly
he was upset. I had missed the tone that he wanted. He later used some of my data but the whole
approach was different. And he just was going to take it over and, you know, he's a busy man
and his education person should have given him the speech that he needed. There was no
repercussions. I do feel he probably should have maybe given me a little more feedback. You
know, I guess I later looked at the speech and it was not the same direction. So maybe he should
have given me more guidance, which he was not big on giving. But he wasn't going to yell at
me, and we would move on to the next item; never yelled at by the man.
Did he ever lose his cool? Did you see that happen?
Yes. One time; it isn't with his colleagues - it was - and it so sticks in my mind because it isn't
Proxmire-like. There was the public witnesses at an appropriations hearings. These are people -
all kinds of people coming, whether it be health or education - to plea for - this is the public, not
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 66 Proxmire Oral History Project the people running the program for the agencies. And they get three to five minutes - I couldn't
remember how much they had this day - and Tom van der Voort was there and was running the
hearing for Prox. And this public witness begins and Tom comes up with a comment, as you see
all the time, the staff comes up; whispers in Prox's ear. Prox turns a little bit to respond to Tom,
and there's a silence in the room because the public witness stops and says, "I'll wait until you're
finished speaking with your friend there, so I can get your attention." And Prox clearly got angry
and said, "I've heard everything you've said and now your time is up. Thank you." "My time is
not up." "Your time is up! Thank you." And that person had to leave. That was a moment of
sharp, you know - he would do it in a hearing, get a little more excited or on the floor, but this
was where I thought he was angry with somebody and it showed. But he did it in his controlled
way, and that person got about one minute of time with the Senator.
He was a very controlled person, would you say?
Oh, yes. That's what was good. You knew what was coming up. He didn't surprise you. And he
wanted a speech every morning on the Genocide Convention. You knew that was going to come
up. You knew there was a Golden Fleece every month. He was scheduled. He liked being
scheduled. He was what we like to call a "control freak."
Do you know if that had any negative effects on his personal life or his family, any way in fact, in
which his Senate career might have sacrificed — ?
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 67 Proxmire Oral History Project He went back almost every weekend to Wisconsin. He cared a great deal for his son, Douglas.
But Prox is not someone - he's a courteous man, but he's not someone who's warm and
affectionate. And so I don't know his personal relationships. I really didn't have a close, personal
relationship with Prox, and I'm not sure who on the staff did. It was a good, professional
relationship. But again, he was always aware and he did the things that were wonderful. He knew the story about my son not - refusing to be bar mitzvahed, which is the Jewish rite of passage; thought it was great - this maverick son Mort had. And a couple of times he saw Lowell; just
loved him. And one time during a recess, Lowell was on his high school debate team and said to
me, "Any chance Prox has time to debate me?" And I said, "I'll ask him." And Prox said,
"Lowell, I'll debate you." And actually, got it shot in about - it was on voluntary school prayer, they debated.
Wow.
And Prox hit him, saying, "Knowing what you did with your bar mitzvah, I am not surprised that
you want to debate me about religion and prayer and stuff." And Lowell was taken - he told me
later - it was a private meeting, and Lowell ended up saying, "He's really good." Lowell was
really prepared, and just loved the stories about Prox. And I think one of the most wonderful things - he and his wife drove in from Pittsburgh to attend the Proxmire memorial. The few times he met him, reading about him, knowing his dad's involvement, he was so proud that he
knew him and that his father had been associated with him. And he sees himself as, you know,
we'll see what he does. He's going off for a year of leave from the Rand Corporation to be in the
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 68 Proxmire Oral History Project policy shop of the Secretary of Defense. But being honest, speaking your mind - Lowell sees
himself as, you know, very mildly like Proxmire.
A protege.
Yeah. Well, he wasn't. I mean, he didn't work in the office or anything.
I'm glad you got that story in here. So we 're still sort of in the late '70s. Any pieces of legislation
or pieces of work —
Hour 3/09:30 BP's Labor Victories in '70s
Yes. It's one of our great victories and it actually tells many stories about the Senate, about Prox.
Under the Carter White House now, for years organized labor helped people; had tried to put in
cotton dust standards. That is, control the amount of the small particles when you're in textile
mills in the south. But the people who control the power - Mahon was appropriations from
Texas; Senator Hollings from North Carolina. And it never got through. Well, at least they got it
forward. They had tried to go to court. It went on and on. Now it looked like everything had
failed and it was about to go forward. They tried to stop it by placing a rider on an appropriations
bill which said, "No money under this act shall be spent on enforcing cotton dust standards."
They had lost in court. I mean, it had gone on for years. This is an example of when you had
moderate Republicans. A conference must have agreements between the House and Senate. And
I was able to get Senator Brooke of Massachusetts, Senator Schweiker of Pennsylvania, and
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 69 Proxmire Oral History Project Senator -1 guess it was the Senator from New Jersey, a Republican moderate - three - agreed to
back us and we then, on behalf of the Carter administration and organized labor, refused to go
along, raised an issue, said, "We will not agree to this amendment to the appropriations bill." Led to a really tough on both sides - the House Democrats - and it was against Democrats. I mean, the leadership was Democratic. And finally Prox said to me, "You know, they're tough over there, Mort, but you're a runner." I had started to get into running and had run marathons. And
Prox said, "We'll outlast these guys." And it was clear we had enough votes. They were testing the waters. He had three Republican votes on the Senate side, plus some of the Democrats, but
several didn't want to upset leadership. Prox was going to fight it and we won the battle. And
finally they were not going to hold up the entire Health and Education Bill- which is Labor HEW then it was called - Labor and all that was in that package. And again, this is an interesting thing
about politics. I've learned a number of lessons: one, you can work with people, at least then
you could; and two, it was a big victory. And I remember Hollings said, "I would like . . ." and there was a discussion, "I want to require the Labor Department to do another study." Well now,
it's ridiculous! This thing's been studied to death, been reviewed. And Prox said, "Sure." And he
immediately said to me, "It's nothing. It's going in. You've got to give the man something for
his people and his constituents. What are we giving up, Mort? We won." Interestingly, the lower
level AFL-CIO [American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations] staff,
which I thought were going to praise me - a lower level, a medium level guy, berates me, and
actually in front of-1 mean, we're walking out. I'm so proud, you know. This is a small room.
"Why did you give him anything?" And I wasn't going to say -1 said, "This is the agreement,"
you know. The most senior guy, one of the very high officials, pushed this other guy aside and
said, "Great job, Mort. Thank you." And I said to Prox, "Wow!" He says, "Oh, c'mon, you know
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 70 Proxmire Oral History Project what it's like. They've been fighting these people for years and, you know, they want to
completely win." And he said, "We've won. It's great." The interesting reason I tell that is we
got a call. The senior guy at the AFL says, "Mort, we're having some of the people who worked
on this for lunch. We'd like you to come to lunch." Prox didn't like that. You know, it was at one
of the nicer, Capitol Hill - and he said - he knew. He was there. The guy had yelled at me and the other guy had come over. "You can go to lunch on this one, Mort. Go ahead. You can have a
lunch." And the guy later again apologized for his younger guy's behavior, saying - they way
Prox did - "We fought these guys for years." And I'm very proud of that one because it forced the industry to make changes in structure, that studies even by conservative economists said
helped them become more competitive against a lot of the - and it's still a tough haul for
American textiles and clothing - but they made a lot of changes in their machinery, in their
ventilation, in their plants, in toto, which in part was to meet the new standards. But they also
moved into new technology, which made them more productive and competitive. So it ended up
having a very good effect on the industry.
That's a really good story, you know, about a lot of things. Any other stories about that time period during the Carter administration?
Prox, as I said, had tremendous - he had some meetings with Carter and came back and thought that this was, you know, the brightest, most on top of it, President. And you know, in retrospect,
we see him as not a great President. The other story in that period is, of course, one that I'm only tangentially involved in. It's the beginning of deregulation. The Savings and Loans come to the
Banking Committee, say, "We can't be competitive in this new environment." And all of the
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 71 Proxmire Oral History Project deregulation is taking place. This is under the Carter years. If you look back, even the people
who served say, "Let's free up the market," and they're Democrats. And so we have all these
changes in the trucking industry, in the railroad, in the airplane industry, in financial industries.
And due to what was going on in the economy at the time?
In the economy and a new belief- my belief is that if you look at the Reagan revolution, it
begins really in the later Carter years. Carter is not some super left-winger and the impetus is
going - the tide of liberal, more and more control - the Great Society has run its course. And one
last example where we had - I can't remember how many seats in the '60s - given what's about to happen with health insurance, and you needed the votes in order to break a filibuster. And it
was something called the Labor Reform Act. And the story I got from the Democratic leadership
later was that - and Prox was right on it. He was going to vote to break the filibuster. He was
very pro-labor on this one. But there were a lot of Democrats who just were in, you know, "We
have a lot of seats, and some of those seats are in states that aren't so Democratic and aren't so
organized-lab or intensive." And they kept saying to the leadership - then it was Bobby Byrd,
now that very old guy, and he was an energetic man then - "You got my vote. But don't make
me the sixtieth." It's this famous thing that in the legislature, you can vote wrong for a group, but
if it matters, they'll never forgive you. So you'll remember - "Ah, you should have helped us on this one, but we won anyway," or "We lost by twenty votes anyway." But if it's really close -
and I heard this story more than once from the leadership staff - they had sixty-one or sixty-two
votes, as long as those didn't have to be the sixtieth, and they never got above fifty-eight,
because that's too close. "I am not going to be your vote when it's fifty-nine or sixty." And so
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 72 Proxmire Oral History Project while sixty-two or sixty-three Senators, they said, were really for ending the filibuster, they
never could get above fifty-eight.
Interesting.
It didn't break. And then, of course, the Reagan revolution began a year and a half, two years
later. And Prox, of course, was really part of the deregulation that later was - how should I say -
aggravated by the lack of supervision in the early Reagan years that led to the debacle of the
S&L. And again, some people would know better, but I think that's one of the things Prox would
feel he didn't handle as well as he should have was that deregulation.
And you think he was for it in order to make the S&Ls more competitive?
Yeah; to open them up. They were so restricted on how they could do things, and Prox was very
much for helping housing - really believed, you know, in the idea that home ownership is the
backbone of a family living together, and the economy. This is one place I kind of disagreed. I
used to have meetings with Tom and Prox a little bit and Howard saying, "You're overdoing this.
I mean, this is an important industry, but you're so focused on helping it, you know. I'm not sure
it deserves the kind of attention." I actually still feel that way today, that America - and it's part
of the reason we've had this problem with housing, I believe. We've put so many incentives for
home ownership, sometimes the incentives bring people who shouldn't be there, get there. But that's a whole other story.
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 73 Proxmire Oral History Project But at the time, anyway, he was Chair of the Banking Committee?
At the time he was Chair of the Banking Committee. It went through his committee. Now, there
was another set of even stronger deregulation that occurs in the early '80s. And he now, because
it's the Reagan revolution; the Democrats agree in the House to do it. In fact, they take the
leadership in many ways, but now it's under - Jake Garn has taken the Banking Committee. Prox
is the Ranking Minority when the second set of reforms come. But the early - and again, when
you mention - obviously Ken McLean would know the details on this better.
Hour 3/20:25 BP's Position on Bailouts, BP's Recognition of RR as Political Threat, Change in BP's Staff with Republic;!n White House, MS's Supervision of Interns
How did Prox feel about bailouts, given what's going on now, and also there was the Chrysler
bailout in the late '70s?
The best way to put it was the famous -1 guess it was either The New York Post or The Daily
News - "Prox to New York: Drop Dead!" He was against the bailout of Chrysler. He was
against the bailout of New York. He just didn't like bailouts. And one of the questions I'd ask
him if he was alive and we could sit and talk, you know, perhaps this crisis was so great that we
really had no choice, but it would have been an interesting one for -1 mean Prox believes, "You
got yourself in a corner. You know, let it burn. You rebuild." That was generally his notion. And
again, with the Chrysler situation, it would be interesting. You'll get a lot more out of it in the
case of what -
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 74 Proxmire Oral History Project Ken will say.
Ken knows about it.
But he also, it seems in what I've been hearing, really believed in oversight. So even though a federal loan may have been made, he —
Oh, of course! Oh, of course! He would bring these people in. He believed in Congressional
oversight. He always said that's one of the things his colleagues didn't do enough of. You don't
get the headlines. You get the headlines, you say, "I've passed a bill. I've done this." But to do the nitty-gritty of reviewing a program, how well is it running? But he took that very seriously.
And he expected the people who supervised in the government to do the same. See, he was not
against government. He was running it well and cleanly, and that's the difference. There are
others who say, "Well, government's all bad, and whatever it is, it's corrupt, so I might as well
get my share." That was not Prox. He was calling the supervisors in and saying, "Are you doing the right thing in running the program? I'm asking you tough questions. Are you managing?"
We could use him today.
We certainly could.
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 75 Proxmire Oral History Project So tell me about—you said he made an interesting comment when he heard the Carter/Reagan
debates.
Yeah. Now, we're moving - it's one that all of us remember. And I ended up - talk about how
you're influenced -1 used it later. And again, I was right because I was influenced by my boss.
Prox has been a tremendous influence. The first debate between Carter and Reagan, famous line:
"There you go again," you know. Reagan came off as a very human, nice guy. We - the staff - this is a world without e-mail. We all get on the speaker phone. And Prox is in Wisconsin after the debate and says, "Oh, what do you think?" And we all said, "Oh, it's ridiculous," you know.
"Reagan was made mincemeat. Carter had everything at his fingertips." And I still remember his
voice going, "Hey, you guys have been in Washington for too long. Reagan did very well. He
accomplished what he needed to. President Carter has got..." -1 can't remember, but he said -
"This is going to be a lot tougher than we think," beating Reagan, because he thought he had
handled himself just right, and we saw it as all the insider - you know, he could facile with the
facts. And the reason I remember it so well was the first debate between Gore and Bush - we
were living and teaching in Bulgaria then. And they were able to beam it into the State
Department. And I was sort of the expert and everybody was saying how well Gore did and they
were really pulling for Gore. And I said, "I'll tell you the Proxmire story, and it's happening
here, too. I don't like exactly the way Gore handled himself. He was the smartest kid with his
hand always up, and Bush seemed a little more personal. I don't think Gore did as well as he
should have on his first debate," and I put it all in the context of Proxmire. So he does influence
you.
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 76 Proxmire Oral History Project So then Reagan gets into office and all of a sudden you 're in the minority again.
Yeah. And Prox was not happy under that. I mean, we went ahead but he loved being in charge,
as everybody was. One of the nicer things to say again about him is how he tried as best he could
- and this is a good example of when Senators work together - he did everything he could to
make sure - and again, you've got to go over this with Ken McLean. Staff was helped as much
as possible, because you go from you have two-thirds of the staff to having one-third. It's a
switch, and a lot of people had to lose their jobs. But because Prox had been so fair over the
years, and Garn is a pretty good guy - they actually carried a couple of staffers for awhile on
Banking. They worked together. Even though the Chair switched, Garn respected Prox for who
he was and always did. And the staff was helped that way. And in other committees where there
was an uglier relationship or it wasn't a Prox, the transfer was fairly ugly and mean-spirited; not
on the Banking Committee. That's a tribute to Garn, his staff people, Prox and Ken McLean; that
everybody tried, because it's very tough. Not only did we lose, we lost the White House. So there was no place to go downtown. It was tough for people. Not for me. Prox, of course, was
still a Senator. But he became a minority guy. And you know, the famous line one of my friends
said - one of the Republicans who was so pleased about it, ended up later saying, "Can you help
me get this committee report out? Gee, there's a lot to do when you're in the majority." Because
you've got to get things done; mechanically, you've got to get reports out. And that's why you
get more staff. But it's six years somewhat in the wilderness. It's better to be a winner rather than
a loser.
You headed the intern program. Maybe we could talk a little about that.
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 77 Proxmire Oral History Project Yes; very proud of it. Again, this is partially me, partially Prox, little bit Howard, a lot more Ron,
when he takes over. Internships are often very political and also people don't get paid, so you've
got to be sort of middle-class or more. And he said, "Mort, you're the old professor. Run the
program." And my discussion was, "They should be paid the equivalent of minimum wage." So they were paid. And again, Larry ran it before, and I'm not sure about how much of it - it was
somewhat more structured by me because Larry did a good job. But it was an open competition.
It was like getting into college. People sent resumes, transcripts, and a piece to a writing. And we
would have, depending on the summer - and we actually had interns all year round - they would
submit all this material and we always allowed one or two people who didn't have a Wisconsin
connection - the best of the outsiders - your Wisconsin connection was you went to school in
Wisconsin or you were from Wisconsin. So we were getting Ivy League kids, but they were from
Wisconsin. But we were also getting a couple of Ivy League kids who had no connection with
Wisconsin. He allowed that. And he then took our recommendations, my recommendations,
which were passed through Howard, and we'd go over it, discuss it. And it was a professional
internship. They all got to write speeches right away because you had to get the daily speech out
on the Genocide Convention. They helped research the Golden Fleece. So it was a highly sought-
after internship program. And I would always give them an opening talk, which was, "Whatever
you do, you're working for Bill Proxmire. We're naysayers. They're looking for
embarrassments. You're working for us. Whatever you do, think about that a reporter happened to be with you and it was going to be in The Milwaukee Journal or The Washington Post or The
New York Times tomorrow. Don't do anything that you wouldn't want to read about in the paper the next day."
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 78 Proxmire Oral History Project Hour 3/30:15 BP's Expectations, BP's Use of Press
And there were very few incidents over, you know, over a decade of running that program. We
got good people. Some worked out better than others. We made a couple of mistakes. But these
young people went on to do terrific things, including becoming a Congressman and running for
higher office and very socially involved. You always want to talk about the general ones - a
couple did not work out. But, you know, Prox didn't like to fire people and so you'd kind of
isolate them, you know, try to keep them out of trouble.
And they were therefor a summer or for a semester?
We had it all year round. Summer was, of course, the big one. But there were people who wanted
it so badly, and they knew the competition wasn't as tough, they would take a semester off,
sometimes getting credit out of their school to work on our internship program. And they had
desks. I mean, they had to do the mail. Mail - again with Proxmire - I remember once - I don't
know if it was his comment to - he always would do this to everybody - he'd pick up a mail and
go, "It's two days old, Mort. Get it out." "Two days, Senator!" you know, I didn't say that to
him. I wouldn't confront him. But he believed in getting it done and he was, you know - and you
had to respond to your constituents and some of us got into a little bit of trouble if we fell behind
on that. And he expected you to be good and get things out. My quick story about in this period,
speech - Howard Shuman is near the end of his career. He decides quickly to take on an
amendment - fight something, surprise us - unusual. We had some idea what was coming up so
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 79 Proxmire Oral History Project we always could plan. And he wants a major speech. And that Howard, he sat at his typewriter
and knocked out his part of the speech -just knocked it out. I'm at my little word processor trying to put it together. And mine is the more analytical part - Howard will get mad, may he rest
in peace - but I had to bring some facts to it. Howard's doing the rhetoric. But I'm a little slow.
And I'm really working quickly. I've got to do a quick follow-up story about the difference
going back on this one. Prox comes by and says, "Give me the pages you've got done, but I
better not be left with a blank page. Get over to the floor as soon as you can." And I got it done,
because it's a different world than academia. The one quick story was, early on he wanted me to
-1 talked about something to do with trade issues and whether or not the dollar should be fixed
or the way it's now floating. And he said, "Get me some information on it." "Okay." Well, I got the guy's technical articles. "Where's that little memo you were going to give me?" This is, like,
I've been working there three weeks. "Senator, I'm working on it." He says, "Did you talk to the
author?" "No." "Well, you got any questions, get me my memo. Call him. You know where he
is." And I never thought about it. You know, you're now working for - I pick up the phone, call
Columbia University, and the professor calls me back shortly afterwards and was very helpful.
You don't do original research. You have all of these things. You pick up the phone. They
answer you, not because you're somebody, but because you're working for somebody. You're
working for a powerful United States Senator. This particular individual, I'm very proud that I
said his work was important. Because a couple of years later, he won a Nobel Prize in
Economics.
Oh, wow.
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 80 Proxmire Oral History Project A guy named Mundell in Trade Theory. But it was this idea you've got to learn to adjust; the
same thing with getting a speech out. When you're writing something in academia, you don't sit
down and write (laughter) - but you've got to be good, because what you're saying is going into the Congressional Record. You can correct the record a little bit later, but you better have your
facts right.
Well you mentioned earlier in dealing with the interns, sort of making them aware of the press
implications, you know, of what their actions were or their words. And I'm wondering if you can
comment a little bit about his use of the press and his skill at dealing with media relations.
He started a bit as a reporter. He knew the game. And he had a wonderful - well, he also had a
good press secretary. But Howard Shuman was superb at it, too. You'll notice - look for a time to release the Golden Fleece when it's not a heavy news day. You would release it in a way that
- and it would go out and then you could answer questions. He knew the cycle of the news,
which was very different. Now it's a twenty-four news cycle. And the one he always impressed
me with technology was - and I saw this from the beginning - it was pretty much Milwaukee
TV, and Chicago a little bit because, you know, that went into some of the market in Kenosha -
he would give an early morning speech, and the reporters would come right over to him - we're talking about TV now. So he used TV very well early. And by giving this right outside of the
office - they'd set up the cameras and then I guess it was film. Whatever they did is they put it
on a plane from Milwaukee or Chicago, and sometimes it would appear on the five o'clock news
in the Midwest - Midwest time - but certainly by the ten o'clock news. Here is an issue that they
want to have a local connection. Prox knew it. He was available with the reporters early in the
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 81 Proxmire Oral History Project morning. Or there were times if he wasn't up on a hearing - because when he attended a hearing,
he would do it - "I can meet you at eleven fifteen," which was running late because I think the
flight they usually put him on was like one o'clock or something. But if he didn't have a hearing
he would do it earlier. So he knew - and then it was immediately edited and Prox was there on
TV that night commenting on something. So he was very good with mass media - getting the
press releases out, knowing when to do it, phrases that would grab reporters. And, of course, he
was a naysayer. So you want to balance a story, you know, you could always try to call Proxmire
and he more than likely is the one's willing to bell the cat or say no. One time I remember, it was
a slow news day and I got a call from a reporter and the guy was saying, "Well, I'm looking for
somebody to oppose this." And I said, "Well, you got the wrong guy." He says, "Oh, God, it's a
slow news day and there's nobody around. Prox is really not someone who will get on and say he
opposes this? I'm trying to balance the story." I said, "Can't help you on this one." Because they
were looking - I'd call it fair, but I'd find that sometimes ridiculous, you know - almost
everybody agrees on something, find some person who says something negative and you gotta
put it in the story. But he knew how to handle that. What he didn't like to handle was personally,
we were one of the last offices to go computers - one of the last. He was not excited with using the word processor. Howard Shuman continued to use a manual typewriter. So we were slow in
some of that. But in using the press, being friendly with the press, being honest and professional
- see, one of the things he didn't do is lie to the press - being available, cute turn of phrases that
you could quickly put in a story - he was great at that. And Prox was always aware of a public
perception - of the story I told with the interns - of how you behave. And there's a wonderful
story that one time he's driving too fast -1 think it's more than one time he drove too fast - but a
policeman pulls him aside. I can't remember if it was a State Trooper or local cop, and says,
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 82 Proxmire Oral History Project "Oh, Senator Proxmire. Oh, my goodness. You were going way too fast. I don't know what to
do. I really should give you a ticket." And he says, "You do you what you think is appropriate or
proper. You're doing your job. I was in the wrong." And he says, "Okay, and he writes him a ticket." The publicity is so positive, where so many of these powerful people squelch it - "I don't
need it on my record. It might affect my insurance." Prox knew that he was going to get
wonderful publicity; that he wasn't above the law. And so he turned this little incident into
wonderful publicity. And if the cop had gone the other way and forgotten about it, he might have told the story, too, to his friends. But this one is a story that resonated all around, and for a lousy twenty-five dollar, whatever the ticket was, Prox got wonderful publicity. And he did drive too
fast sometimes.
Well, we 've spoken about how he deals with the press. How did he deal with lobbyists? Were
they visiting the office at all?
No.
Or did they just know he wasn 't —
No.
— up for sale.
Hour 3/39:30 Dealing with Lobbyists, Limitations in Making Decisions on Behalf of BP
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 83 Proxmire Oral History Project He was wonderful this way. And probably, again, the appointments secretaries know the details
better. He didn't want straight lobbyists coming in. He wanted his constituents to come, so that if the issue was - whatever, "I'll discuss it with my constituents." Now, you obviously are going to
be brought up to speed by your lobbyists, but he didn't want to talk to them. He wanted the
Wisconsin interests. And in the case of trying to bring your lobbyists in? No. You come. You
make your case. So that there's a meeting of all these people with a particular point of view,
sometimes they'd come along, but the lobbyists would not show up on their own. They might be
able to accompany the constituent. And again, all the details of when he'd let them in or not-
and there were times where he did not like the lobbyist's behavior and he let the front office
know, you know, "I don't want that one coming back. He took over the whole meeting. I never
heard from the guy from Wisconsin. You know, you make it clear that if Joe Schmoe wants to
come see me again, have him come with someone else."And he didn't have to go to the
receptions. He didn't have to raise money with them. We didn't have to meet with them. A
lobbyist calls up and they want to meet with us? We don't have to see them. One that ties together the notion that a Golden Fleece - isn't a Golden Fleece - it's just bad amendments that
waste taxpayers' money. Georgetown, of course, does not have a state or a local government.
And it's a wonderful university, but it was very famous for getting a lot of special treatment in
bills to build things. And in this one meeting, I saw that they were going to fundamentally find a
way of building the new intramural - not the intercollegiate basketball - but for the intramural
and all those programs, they were going to put some classrooms in and some professors and say that this was part of an education funding. But eighty percent of it was to pay for a wonderful,
new track and gym for Georgetown. And Prox said, "Enough of this. I agree, Mort. We should
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 84 Proxmire Oral History Project object to it." You know, we were courteous. I met with the people from Georgetown but Prox
didn't. And somebody said, "You know, what do we need to do?" And I said, "You're not going to see Prox. I'm speaking to you. I'll bring your message. If you want to have someone from
your alumni - " and they ended up having a very major person fly in from Wisconsin who's a
Georgetown grad, and said, "sit down with Prox," and explained it and said, "Well, they tell me that you're a proud Georgetown graduate." "Yes, I am." "You've raised money." "Yes, I have."
"And you're conservative. You're basically a Republican." "Yes, I am, Senator, but I respect
you." "This is not an education building. What did they tell you?" "Oh yeah, it is." "Well, Mort,
here - show him the plans." "Swimming pools? Diving? They didn't tell me all of that. I
apologize. I should have known that you were right on this one. Georgetown should be raising
money from people like me to build something like this. Thank you, Senator." Now whether he
ever voted for Prox, I don't know if he gave money. But I'll still remember this guy coming in,
and not very angry, try to make a fair presentation from what they had told him. And when I
showed him what it was actually for, he backed off, because we had the facts right and he
respected Proxmire. And the lobbyists, of course, were hounding me like crazy. And of course they tried to bring pressure by the last thing, because there were so many important people who
have connections, you'd have your colleagues call you. "Bill, please let this go through. You
know I've got a kid going to Georgetown. Can't you let this one go through?" And Prox said,
"This doesn't belong in the bill. This isn't education. This is their intramural gym. We gotta
draw the line somewhere." And when he would present it that way, there were some who simply
said, "We really need to do this for Georgetown," but, you know, there was enough
embarrassment. It never went through. And actually, they have a wonderful center. They got a
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 85 Proxmire Oral History Project little piece of money, as I remember, somewhere. But essentially, as it should be done, it's a
wonderful school. They built their own facility.
Were there ever times where staff did sort of make deals with other staff offices that Prox didn't
quite know of? You know, where people did some of that kind of strategizing —
With Prox or with others? I mean, in general, there were things that appear in appropriations bills
you never can figure out where they got there. If I did a deal that I didn't clear with Prox, I mean, that was - he's available and you don't do that. You only can speak as far as you can on his
behalf- "I'll bring it to Prox." I do know absolutely as a fact that there were staffers who, for
various reasons, all but had the power to make decisions. That was not true in our office. I'm
sure - there's a famous guy, his name is well known - he got in trouble - named Harley Dirks,
who was Magnuson's person in this appropriation area, and he began to - absolutely, you dealt
with him. And there was some ways you dealt with him that weren't very nice and, in fact, there
were even times where he ended up saying to me, "Have Prox call me," rather than Magnuson.
And if Prox chose to do that, that was okay. But I did not work a deal with Harley Dirks. And there were people, many very powerful staffers, who did things almost as though they were
elected officials. You did not do that as a Proxmire staffer. That's why he trusted you and you
could argue. But when it was beyond your charter - what he said I should do, I would say, "I
have to bring it to Prox. I cannot say yes or no. I'm not sure what he wants." There were times
I'd say, "I suspect he will oppose that, but I will ask him if you ask me to." But I always went
back to Prox. And just since we're telling these stories about the roles you play with the Senator, the one role playing you did play was the other way. And it was not - so that one I remember,
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 86 Proxmire Oral History Project Prox had announced his retirement and it was on a labor issue, and it might have been minimum
wage or something. And Prox was going to be for it. And the meeting begins, and I am the hard-
nosed staffer - minimum wage does not hurt industry that much, workers need it, whatever. They
come in. Prox comes in and says, "Your staffer is an SOB." This happened more than once. It's
my role. He, then, says, "Let me listen to your side of it." And he listens very carefully and says,
"You've made some good points. There may be some things maybe I can consider down the
way." He does not promise that he'll vote against minimum wage or he'll soften - he'll certainly think about some of the things that they raised. And they say, "Well that's great, because I don't think the staffer's serving you very well." "Well, Mort's a very bright guy but he feels strongly
on this one. But I'm the Senator, and I'm going to look at all this stuff." And we walk out -
because I'll remember this. His office is here. I'm over there. I said, "Senator, we always play it this way. One time before we both leave the Senate, why can't I be the good guy with some of these groups, like the way you are?" Like the way your are, he laughed and said, "That's not
what I'm paying you for, and he walked back in the door. And, of course, he voted - that is part
of the game that's played. But I would never say Prox would agree to do this or that. That's part
of your role. You're a little bit the heavy so that the Senator can appear to be more reasonable.
Because if you're reasonable, and the Senator seems to be less reasonable, you're more annoyed
at him and you get the feeling that you can blame a little more on the staff. The staffer really was
- as I said, more than once, they'd say, "Senator, you're being mis-served by this guy," you
know. He would then defend me, but it is part of the game. Certainly, I can't say to somebody,
"I'll work on Prox on this and we'll see if we bring him around." I'll bring it to his attention, but
if I start in a tougher position, it gives Prox more leeway. Once in awhile, he does give them
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 87 Proxmire Oral History Project something that surprises me, but let it be a surprise that they're happy with rather than my getting their hopes up and it gets dashed, and he looks like the good guy and I'm the jerk.
Are there other things in the '80s, in the Reagan years that you remember working on that were
big battles? Of course, I'm curious about what happened when the Genocide Convention was finally ratified, because he had been working on it for —you know, these speeches were daily.
Hour 3/50:10 Passing of Genocide Convention, Senate Changes in '80s, BP's Retirement Announcement
We were just so happy that that -
What made it finally go through, do you think?
It just -1 don't know. I wasn't on the floor when that happened and why they finally backed off.
I mean, it had been going on for so long.
Since 1967,1 think he had been making a daily speech.
You know, I think probably you gotta get back -
Just wore them down, (laughter)
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 88 Proxmire Oral History Project You wore them down a little bit, but really, you know, the exact politics of it - maybe Ron
knows it better. I really don't recall. And remember, I worked on it only in the sense of working
with the interns and everybody who's an LA had a turn at looking at the speeches and turning them into Proxmire, but I had to organize the interns, as head of the interns, as that was always
one of their roles. But the Genocide Convention was not something that I really did with my
work.
But you remember when it passed and that there was a celebration of sorts?
Oh, yeah. Relief. And then there was a joke about what else were we going to do with the
interns? You know, relief and then kind of - you know, it's one of those symbolic things we
were talking about. It's not critical, but it became just such a symbol, just like with the cop-killer
bullets, where people get mad at him, you know -the police say, "Please, don't let people have
Teflon covered bullets." The Genocide for "One Worldism," you know. And it's the same thing
with the Panama Canal. "It's not the Panama Canal, you're giving back the United States' canal
in Panama." These symbolic things - there's always this fear that you're undercutting the
constitution. But it's not something I really worked on in a way and thought about foreign policy that way.
Well that was just one of my questions about the '80s. And I'm wondering if there's anything else
that stands out to you about those years?
Boy . ..
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 89 Proxmire Oral History Project The Senate changed.
'86.
You touched a little — but in general, sort of from the time that you started.
Yes, yes.
Just the technology changes.
And also - this is sort of my belief, that when you win big, people who tended to be ideologues
on both sides, who were willing to run a tough race and they don't expect to win, but they're
going to make a stand, end up winning. And very often you get not as high quality, and maybe a
little more ideologues. And they tend to come in - when we win so big in '74 from our side and
for the Republicans under the Reagan victories. And Reagan is the great communicator. And we
are in the minority and there are a number of Senators and people in the House who are less
compromising.
Less?
Compromising; less willing to work with you. And I start to see that begin to happen. It doesn't
happen precisely where Prox is working. Joint Economic Committee, by its nature, is somewhat
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 90 Proxmire Oral History Project bipartisan, but it does change actually. We obviously are Democrats and we're Keynesians and
sort of liberal economists, but not ideologues. The Joint Economic Committee, in my mind when they began to have the power there, began to sound more and more, you know, like free market
ideologues. And I mean, I'm a believer in the markets otherwise I wouldn't be an economist, but
it's not happening in the Banking Committee because it's Jake Garn. They are still working together. Appropriations - you know, this phenomenal thing that happened - it's after I leave,
where appropriations become all earmarks. We'd fight earmarks. Being on appropriations meant
you could do some earmarking, but it doesn't -1 mean, under the Reagan revolution, as I
remember, it's not that terrible. It starts. It's starting to happen - Alfonse D'Amato - he's very
proud of it, so I'm not telling something out of school - is doing more earmarking of
appropriation bills for his people. So the world that we see now was beginning then, but it was just beginning. There still was bipartisanship on a lot of things because we still controlled the
House. And the one story about change, which is - well, we win again. It's '86. Reagan's still in.
I get several different calls. Now we're back in power. This is with the lobbyists. They know they're not going to get through to Proxmire. Somebody who's a lobbyist for - it may have been
an education issue. I can't remember - says, "Hi, Mort. Haven't seen you in a long time . . . blah,
blah, blah . . . gotta come up and talk to you." Why did he call me? Hadn't called me in years?
Well, because my side's in power now and he's gotta deal with me. And these guys are
shameless. It's like an old friend, you know - "Oh, you know, I just never sent you an e-mail.
I've been so busy with my grandkids." Guy called me. The other one was to get a call - and I
guess I'm not telling anything - Secretary Bennett, who was head of Education, gives us a call
and was very - "Can I talk to Prox?" "Prox is not here." "I'll talk to you. You're a staffer." And the gist of it was, "Well, we've lost control, but Prox is reasonable and conservative on big
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 91 Proxmire Oral History Project spending and doesn't like bad programs and badly run programs. I can work with Prox. I'm hoping that you will give Prox the message that I'd love him to stay on." He took over the
Ranking Minority of Education -1 won't go through it all - in the years we're in the wilderness and not in power. But in '86 when we win again, he wants to go back because as the head of the
Banking Committee, he does the authorization on housing and all of that, and then he does the appropriations. So he was going to go back. And I speak a while to Bennett and the Secretary of
Education said, "My feeling is he's going to go back. He liked it when he controlled both appropriations." I said, "That's a shame, Mort." It was a really nice conversation. Why? Well, I hadn't spoken to Bennett in years again. I mean, I'd see him in hearings. Why? Because I was now - and he wanted to find out -1 was a staffer for the guy who might stay on and keep the
Committee. And so that's the game in Washington, you know. The old expression - you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. But so the change in '86 brings it back to the way it used to be when I worked '74 to '81.
These are the last two years of his Senate career. Did you know that at the time that he was thinking about retiring?
No, no. Only one hint, which may have been brought to your attention. He had a little plaque of
Warren Spahn, a great left-handed pitcher who was originally with the Boston Braves and then, of course, came out to play out in Milwaukee when the team moved out there. And he kept referring to, "Look at his last couple of years. He stayed on too long. He didn't have as good a record. Earned run average dropped; more losses than victories." The worst thing is to be remembered as, the athlete or anybody - and we, you know, the last election he got seventy-two
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 92 Proxmire Oral History Project percent of the vote. And we just thought it was, you know, sort of Proxmire playing games. And
we didn't know what he would do with himself. This is something I told him when he came back
and announced his retirement and I saw him alone, and I said, "Senator, you know, maybe
you've lost a step" - you know, that's his thing, like in basketball or running in baseball - "but
you still are quicker and better than all the rest of your colleagues around here, you know?" He
says, "Thanks, Mort." He didn't want to talk about it anymore - "You know, it's time to move
on." We noticed that he tired a little more near the end. We didn't find - he still didn't miss a
vote. We still didn't find any substantial slippage. He was becoming seventy-two, but he was
keeping himself in great shape. And, you know, you don't know who the President's going to be
in '88. And I know he spoke to lots of people. I don't know how the decision occurred, but we
were all very -1 was - shocked. In my own mind - that's one reason I never looked for another job. It was a wonderful job, and if I stayed with Prox - and I expected maybe he'd go on beyond the age of seventy-eight - but if I stayed with him one more term, I would have over twenty
years in the Senate and I would be fully vested in the pension plan. And that was about then -1
didn't know what else I wanted to do. But my horizon was, "This is such a great job. Stay with
him one more term." And we got a hint of it. Ron came by and said, you know, "I want to let you
guys know; we now know. He's probably going to announce he's not running again." And I was
really surprised. And he said he wanted to let everyone know way ahead of time so that, you
know, the Democratic Party could find somebody and he wanted to give his staff a chance. And then one of the remarkable things he did was, because some of us were eligible for retirement, he
pushed salaries up. And he was criticized for it. Now admittedly they couldn't do anything to do
him because he was retiring, but he said, "I never paid them that well. They worked very hard,
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 93 Proxmire Oral History Project and I'm going to give them a little support in the last year." And so everybody got a sizeable
raise in that last year.
He really took care of—
And it really helped the people who retired. And helped me, because very clearly when I transferred into the bureaucracy, into the Executive Branch, it was an easy transfer because -
well, there really were no issues because I'm allowed to transfer - but the salary was not that
much bigger than I was making for Prox because he had boosted me in the last period. And I
started looking immediately.
And that's where we '11 end this hour.
HOUR 4
Hour 4/00:00 BP in Today's Political Climate, Learning of BP's Alzheimer's, MS's Position with Inspector General, Inspector General Compared to BP
This is hour number four of our interview on September $ , 2009. And we were talking about
Prox's retirement.
He probably could have pretty easily been re-elected one more time, but the world was changing.
There was more big money. And he never raised money. Well, obviously he did very early in his
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 94 Proxmire Oral History Project career. And he was well known. And we a couple of times discussed it with him and then among
ourselves - we think Bill Proxmire definitely could have gone on, but could you do what he did
when now the cost of campaigns, the media buys, the idea here, what they call the wholesale
rather than the retail, with not just meeting people but the world of the e-mails and the world of television and having to set up, I guess, even a Twitter. It's very expensive for a lot of this. And today more than ever, it takes money - a lot of money, a lot offundraising. And I remember one
of Cranston's staffers saying how lucky we were, how much of their time was involved in
getting money to run in California. It was a luxury working for Proxmire. You only worked on
issues. You didn't have to go to receptions. You didn't have to worry about money. And I think the Republicans might have thrown some money in against Prox in '88, but I don't think it would
have mattered. But if you keep going on, I'm not sure there could be a Proxmire today, where
it's almost a self-sustaining campaign. I mean, obviously if Bill Gates wanted to do it he could,
and very wealthy people. But Prox was for - we had some interesting discussions about public
financing, which he was for. But it hasn't occurred enough where now Presidential campaigns
give up accepting public money because they can raise so much money in the private sector. This
would not appeal to a Bill Proxmire. So I don't know what went through his mind. I think he
could have gone on without changing. But it's very difficult to ever have a Bill Proxmire start
from scratch anymore in the American system. And we are at a loss. I love Bill Proxmire; the
height of my career. We don't need a hundred Bill Proxmires, but we sure as hell need a dozen
or so.
Did you know about his Alzheimer's early on, or when did you find out?
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 95 Proxmire Oral History Project I found out in a way that, as I tell this story, I hope I can get through it. We respected him for his incredible mind and his independence. And it is now several years later and I'm meeting my family for Chinese food. I'm working at the Commerce Department and I'm taking the train.
And there's Proxmire. And I'm figuring he's coming home from his carrel at the Library
[Library of Congress]. And I go, "Hi, Senator." And the guy goes, "Hi. How are you? How ya doing?" He's on mechanical. "Mort Schwartz." "Oh, yeah. Hi, hi." Alright, I mean I'm not Ron
Tammen. We were sued together. I saw him almost every day for fourteen years. He doesn't recognize me at all. And in the two stops until we get to Dupont Circle, I try to talk to him and it's clear he doesn't know who he's talking to. He's on automatic pilot. I so respected him. Love is a funny word, because he's not the kind of guy you love. You respect him, you admire him, but you don't throw your arms around him. And I waved goodbye. And I went up this long escalator and I'm absolutely - tears are streaming down -1 mean, streaming down my face. And of course, my family's waiting for me. I remember the look in my son's eyes. He's a young man, and our daughter, they're on Capitol Hill. They're young adults now. And my wife - "What happened?" "I saw Senator Proxmire and there's something terribly wrong. He didn't recognize me." And immediately we knew what to think. And literally, I had to compose myself. And the whole family was upset. And I called Arlene the next day and I said, "What's going on?" She's now working for Senator Kohl. She says, "What happened, Mort?" She says, "Okay, you're part of the family. I'm going to tell you he's been diagnosed. It's going to be revealed shortly. He's going to officially announce." And I said, "I knew it." Even bringing it up, because the memory flows up of, you know, not being recognized by somebody who was so much your mentor and you're so proud of the years you spent with him, and this is just not the way for Bill Proxmire to go. I honestly, you know, I'm missing, too. Maybe I'm early stages. But I know the story is told
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 96 Proxmire Oral History Project by Ellen that he had in the back of the drawer this Alzheimer's pamphlet. Now you've heard that too, and that may be why he retired. I saw him every day. He seemed a little more tired, but his
sharpness was still very high. He was still more energetic than - he was still seventy-two years
old. I didn't see him significantly declining in his last years in the Senate, but he was.
He noticed something.
He may well have.
Perhaps.
Perhaps. I don't think we'll ever know.
7 sort of skipped over the closing down of the office. I'm wondering if there was any exit
interviews, was there a party, was there —
I got out. I immediately looked for ajob. And I guess I was one of the first to find something.
The Inspector General, who knew of my work because I had used EDA and you've seen these in the Golden Fleeces - and Inspector Generals have an ability to very quickly do this because they
have independent budgets. They have to be independent. And he knew he could bring me on
board immediately and get the work out of me. It was one of the first places I interviewed and it
was a good position. So I thought it wasn't nearly - I mean, to compare him to Proxmire, he was
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 97 Proxmire Oral History Project pretty honest, but not the same level of honesty and manipulative in ways that Prox wasn't. I
mean, I don't need to go into my next boss.
And what did you do there? You did research?
No. I did a number of things. I started off as his Congressional liaison, and taking some of the
most sensitive things. But to be his Congressional liaison meant sometimes misrepresenting,
quite honestly, or not being completely honest to Hill people. I had never done this in my life,
you know. I'd worked for Proxmire. I mean, there are things you might not - you know, I'm not
going to tell you tomorrow, I mean I did blindside - I was telling the story about my big victory,
and I'm meeting with Hollings' guy and I'm talking to him. I'm not going to tell him tomorrow
we're going to oppose his amendment, but I'm not going to lie to him. I mean, I'm a Proxmire
staffer. And he wanted me to, you know - so he needed my advice on the Hill so we found a
modus operandi where I didn't officially report to him but he was always available to me. I got
all kinds of special topics. A lot of the work was very good. And I did that for ten years and did
exciting things which, you know, I was so proud. In many ways, he was a good Inspector
General so that I was very much involved in whether or not they should be sampling for the
decennial census. And I worked on that issue. And again, I tried to be the fair broker, and I
created a mantra for me and for my boss that got both Republicans and Democrats angry. My
mantra was that a sampling model, if properly researched, tested and implemented, would give
us a cheaper, more accurate decennial census. The last part of that, about the fact that sampling
would work, made the Democrats happy and seemed to be the right thing to do. The Republicans
didn't want it because they ended up thinking that underrepresented minorities would be picked
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 98 Proxmire Oral History Project up that didn't always get counted. It's a whole story. But they would harp on me, and also with
my boss when we went to hearings on the Hill, "Well, what do you think? How well is the
Census Bureau doing in developing, testing and implementing their sampling model?" And I
said, "I have to be honest. Not very well. It's not going as well as it should. A lot of errors; a lot
of problems." So, you know, you've got these years, now. It's our side. The Democrats are in,
but I'm trying to be an honest broker that, "It is the right thing to do, but you're not doing it
well." And I turned out to be right. And then, of course, there was this real issue that if they
could not get Congress to somehow approve officially, we want to try to sample, there was a real
likelihood the Court would rule against fundamental use of sampling for the reapportionment.
And the Court did come down that way. And I argued with the people on the Hill saying, "You
gotta do it." And they said, "If we open it up, the Republicans will kill us. I think the Court will
be okay." And I said, "You're going to lose every which way," and they had and they were
embarrassed. So, I mean, there were a lot of important things and I enjoyed it, but not like the
fourteen years with Prox. And then I took an early out and started teaching and traveling and
living overseas and teaching and having grandchildren.
Hour 4/10:20 BP's Influence on MS, BP's Support of MS's Running
Lovely.
And my kids had to do that for me, but -
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 99 Proxmire Oral History Project Well, you know, it sounds like, and expound upon this if you will, that those years with Proxmire
had sort of a lasting influence on you and how you conducted yourself in the next position that you took on.
Absolutely. And that's why I could not stay in his front office. He literally said to me - well, there were things, though, that's a good story about the difference in being a Hill staffer and a
Proxmire staffer. We need to get a press release out, everybody stayed. Everybody got their
hands full of ink. We had to get the press release out. Whether we did or not, Proxmire wanted it.
The speech had to be done. So I'm in the front office with this Inspector General. We visit our
Atlanta office. And there's something he really needs done and it's getting done too slowly. He
says - I won't give the name of the guy - "Call up the guy down in Atlanta. Tell him I need it
right away and I want it done." And I said, "Okay. Is that what your instructions are?" "Yes. This thing's been doggling along, get it done. I need it out of the Atlanta office." I come out of the
Senate and out of Proxmire's staff. Call the guy up, and he says, "Whatever it takes to get it
done?" I said, "That's right. You get it done." Two days later, my boss says to me, "Did you tell
him whatever it took?" I said, "Absolutely." I'm so proud of myself. I know how to do these things. "Do you know he shut down other jobs?" "Yeah?" "Well, what the hell did you do? You
shut down my Atlanta operation to get this report out!" I said, "That's what you told me to do."
"Mort, you took me literally," you know, and I said, "In all of my . . . that's what it meant. I
asked you." He said, "You don't understand. Oh, God!" you know, "Get out of here!" And, of
course, he called back and said I didn't mean it exactly that extreme. And again, it was a
bureaucracy in all the different ways you played games. By the way, the viciousness of a
bureaucracy's nothing compared to Capitol Hill - much worse, because on Capitol Hill, you
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 100 Proxmire Oral History Project gotta work with people again. I lie to you, I misrepresent. The next round, I need your vote. I
need to talk to you. I need to get through to your Senator. There is a certain professionalism that
must be maintained. You are independent, powerful people. In a bureaucracy, it's all bets are off,
everybody clawing for their little piece in the sun and it is ugly. And the games were ugly. And I
did not always enjoy the games. I did some interesting and good work and I'm proud of a lot of
what I did over those ten years. And in fact, it all comes full circle. I was asked to take a look at
how these things called the GDP - the gross domestic product - was developed. And I ended up
finding that they did a wonderful, fair job. I said so, but they weren't documenting properly
every step. And I said, "I don't want to sound like a bureaucrat, but some day you'll be
challenged. You have some very specific rules on statistics, but in other procedures, the
administrative procedures, you haven't written them all down. You need to write them down.
You need to create what I call a "cookbook." So anybody could come in from start to finish. One
of the issues that came up, if you remember, for Bush was that the GDP figures were cooked to
embarrass him and a lot of Republicans felt that. And they, at the Bureau of Economic Affairs,
were able to say, "We have his whole record of how we went about doing the adjustment."
Thanks to Mort Schwartz.
In part. No, again, it's interesting. They had been working on it. But now an IG senior person -
Inspector General - puts it in a report. They put their resources in to clean it up within several
months rather than several years. So I was very proud of that one. So I did a lot of good work, I think.
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 101 Proxmire Oral History Project I'm curious — this is not so much in the political arena, but you said you started to run and you
ran a couple of marathons. Did he also influence you in your personal habits or your health
regimen?
He'd joke with me a little bit, because he knew that I had run in high school and college and said,
"C'mon, get through the hole! C'mon, c'mon, c'mon-you're twenty years younger than me -
c'mon, c'mon, let's get it going. You're out of shape, Mort." He would joke with me about it, but
I'll turn it around the other way. If I didn't have a bill on the floor, there was another office on the other side that we ended up having a shower. I would run over lunch. And I'd be very
careful. I would run either early in the morning -1 would always have my clothes there, but
nothing was happening. It meant I'd eat less for lunch and I took my lunch period to do the five
miles from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial and back, in training. And Prox was very
approving of it. And in fact, many of the staff came out for my first marathon. They threw a little
party for me after I completed it with difficulty. Prox wasn't there, but he was very approving
and nice about it. And I remember something did come up; something surprising came up at twelve-thirty. And, "Where's Mort?" Now, it doesn't happen often - "Where's Mort?" "I'll try to get a hold of him, Senator." And Mort at one o'clock comes back and Prox said, "I knew
where you were, but I couldn't get you. You were half way to the Lincoln Memorial, weren't
you?" I said, "Yes, Senator, I was." And I expected it, "Don't you ever run again. You gotta be
here." And that was the end of it. He made it clear again in this nice way, "Be careful." This
happened once. If it happened a lot, I mean, I might have to give it up. But nothing in addition
was said, but he was still supportive of the running. He didn't say, you know -1 mean there were
no cell phones then. You really could not come back for a half hour. I think that only happened
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 102 Proxmire Oral History Project once like that, but it happened. And he wasn't angry, he just said, "I knew where you were. You
were halfway to the Lincoln Memorial." I remember him saying that.
Any other ways that you think he influenced you that we haven't touched upon here?
Yeah, the way he managed the office so impressed me with the idea of, "We're on a team together, work it out." And, you know, "We rise or fall together, and when I set a deadline, it has
a meaning." And I realize when I taught at the Naval Academy I had to apply the same thing. I
had an incident, which the Naval Academy Offices all agreed I did it the right way -1 taught my
Public Expenditure course there, the economics course, for Public Sector Economics for the
seniors, as though we were Senate staffers and working for like a Proxmire, except I was
Proxmire. And I explained to them that just like in the Navy or in the military, you've got to get things on a deadline. And I had them work in teams because very often, whether it be research or
military or the real world, you're unusual. You work alone. Most people don't work alone. You
work in teams. And you only accomplish what the last person has accomplished. And I explained that to the students. And very early I got tested. And I knew the same thing with getting that
speech in for Proxmire. Howard had gotten his in. Prox wanted it there. I had to get it in by the
deadline. And I told the story in class. And four students were assigned. They all had to do this
major paper and one was - you know, it was the way you do a real world paper of policy. A
group works together and one guy's more an editor, one guy's doing the background. You know,
it's the way it's actually done in the real world. The students come up to me. One guy says, "Sir,
I'll take whatever hit's required. Sir, it has not being completed. Everybody got the assignment
in to me, Sir; I have not completed mine. We cannot turn it in, Sir, on the deadline." "Don't tell
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 103 Proxmire Oral History Project me this now. You're asking me to back off. I told you the story, why it's coming. You can't say that you're flying jets for the Navy and you're doing a strategic run and ..." - well, it wasn't
Iraq then. It was Kuwait or something - "You can't do that!" And the other students are getting
very uneasy. "Sir, I'll take whatever hit you want, sir. It's not their fault." "It is their fault. They
should have made sure you were on top of it. They should have been with you. You all are going to take the hit. I am sorry. I am not going to back off." Part of that was remembering that if I
didn't get that speech in on time, it didn't matter Howard got it in on time. It had to be - the team
had to get it together. And they all lost - and I'll tell you, it was a terrible penalty. They lost a
letter grade on that, and that was half of the term. Now in truth, when I actually graded it, I
probably gave it a little higher grade than I would have. It might have been a B and I gave it a B+
and reduced it to a C+. I wasn't going to try to kill them and I wasn't going to back off. And there were other Naval Academy professors, usually civilians, who would back off. The military
people thought it was fine, you know, because it's the truth. "We gotta rendezvous at 0600 hours.
What do you mean we're supposed to do something?" But that was one of the things I learned
from Prox - that you work as a team. You try not to yell at the team. You say, "You gotta work it
out. You gotta work it out together." Whenever this team came in, I said, "You guys have got to
pull together. I'm not going to be on top of you." And Prox would always say, "I don't have time
for this. Get it done. Work it out."
Hour 4/20:40 BP's Legacy, Today's Senators who Mirror BP
So he really has had a lasting legacy in your life and your work.
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 104 Proxmire Oral History Project On my family, too. I told you, our son - our daughter less so. She was a little younger.
What do you think his legacy is in the broader picture, in the bigger scheme, in either the Senate
or in the government itself, in policies that —
I hate to say it. You know, you can use the biblical thing - the world moves on. And you write in the sand and the next wave comes. We remember him fondly. He influenced us. But it's sad to
say that - we'd love to think there's an everlasting effect. You know, just like we leave ajob and there's a hole that's not replaced. I do not see - we need Proxmires, but we can't bring him back.
We need his type. We need his honesty, his energy, and his own ability to walk across the aisle
somewhat. He's not as personable as, let's say, Obama. But personally, what Proxmire historians
- yes, some of the things he did in terms of - which they've just improved again - the early thing
on consumer credit. You can look at certain real accomplishments that have been built on and we
all are built on the legacy of others. But, you know, the world will little note and they'll long
remember. It's the truth. We don't all do, you know, Gettysburg addresses. He certainly, in his thirty years plus was a tremendous contributor; respected, feared as I - I don't know if - I've got that story. We ought to maybe end with it, about a staffer who says, "Don't worry to his ..." I
was told this by a staffer from another Senator. "We've got the votes for your amendment.
Everything's fine." And it was a piece of pork. And the Senator's looking down at his notes as the little train is running between the Dirksen Office Building and the Capitol. And he says, "Is there going to be any opposition?" "Oh, they'll be some opposition. They don't have the vote."
"Oh, alright. Who's going to lead the opposition?" "Well, I understand that Bill Proxmire's
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 105 Proxmire Oral History Project going to take you on in this one." "Prox is? You got everything together? Are you really ready to go? Let me look at those notes again!" That's Bill Proxmire. He kept them honest.
Do you think there's anybody in the Senate or in the House now that —
One guy who was pretty good died in a plane crash, from Minnesota.
Wellstone.
And we have a Senator from Wisconsin - Feingold.
Feingold.
But it's harder. I mean, there are people kind of I know and respect. It's harder. You take
someone who's really very bright and very good and has a lot of Proxmire-ish characteristics,
like Schumer of New York. But he has to take phenomenal money from Wall Street. How easy is
it going to be for him to do financial reform to bite the hand that's feeding him? It's difficult
because you're so beholden to these special interests to raise the money. As I said, I don't know
how you can bring a Proxmire along.
Not without some campaign finance reform.
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 106 Proxmire Oral History Project Major, major, major. And if anything, we're worried about the court ruling shortly to make it
worse, where corporations are people and therefore they can use their treasury, which for a
hundred years, they were not allowed to do. So as I get older, I'm not that optimistic. But one of the geniuses of America is the pendulum does swing back and forth. The excesses of the Bush
administration are now being revealed and some changes are coming in. And that is why we've
been such a successful society. You know, we swing too far to the right or left and the pendulum
begins to swing back. And I'm hoping we'll have some people. But the institutions have moved
in, I think, very bad direction and I don't know, you know, how to reform them in a way where they will truly be more responsive. Prox, even as he ended his career, even during his career, was
maybe not a lone maverick, but there were only a few like him. And over time, there was less
and less of the Proxmire. And we need that. You need to represent all of the forces of the society
and all of the attitudes and all of the approaches. But I don't think that Proxmire is - as I said, I think the Midwest has a couple of good people, in Feingold.
But somebody like him may not be able to exist or survive in today's political world?
I'm not sure that they can. I never say never.
I guess one other question I'd like to get in here is if you have any ideas about what or whom
influenced him?
No. You know, obviously Senator Douglas very heavily. And that's a wonderful mentor to have.
He was both a professor and a politician. He developed one of the most important concepts in
Morton Schwartz interview Transcript 107 Proxmire Oral History Project part of economics. It's called the Cobb-Douglas production function -that's the Douglas -head
of the American Economics Association. And I think that Senator Douglas did. And there are
other people that Prox spoke about. And again, the notes of Howard Shuman maybe can be
helpful, because by the time I got there in '74, Prox was who he was.
Did you have much other contact with him after leaving the office?
No. As I said, the one wonderful contact - and this is a wonderful way of ending again - was
when this group was going to give all of us an award. And he's now at home and he's now in the
middle throes of the Alzheimer's. He's not yet put up there in the home up in Baltimore. And he
gathers himself together. And I had tears in my eyes. I knew what he was fighting. The strength
of the man - whatever was there, he summoned up. They had prepared a video in case Prox
could not handle himself in front of an audience. Prox gathered himself and - because, you
know, with the video, he doesn't do it right, you do it again and you edit it. He handled himself
beautifully. And he was on somewhat automatic pilot. And one of his famous lines is, "It's not
me. It's all these former staffers of mine who are gathered here." And I had to say it, whether he
absorbed it or not, I said, "Senator, you said we made you look good. Senator, I, for years, have told people you made us look good. And I believe it to this day."
Well, you 've certainly done your part in ensuring that his legacy is preserved.
Thank you.
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 108 Proxmire Oral History Project And thank you.
It really was an honor to work with him and work with the staff. They are some of the finest
people I know and I've worked with. We have never stayed close friends, but the respect is there.
And it really, you know, they were special people. To work for a maverick, you've got to be a
little different, a little difficult, and a little tough. But they're wonderful people. And you're
learning that from interviewing them.
Yeah. Yeah, I am. Thank you so much for doing this.
Thank you for interviewing me.
Morton Schwartz Interview Transcript 109 Proxmire Oral History Project