Interview with George T. Smith August 19, 1992 & August 20, 1992

Georgia Government Documentation Project

Series B: Public Figures

Interview with George T. Smith August 19, 1992 & August 20, 1992 Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library

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CITATION:

Smith, George T., Interviewed by Clifford Kuhn, 19-20 August 1992, P1992-15, Series B. Public Figures, Georgia Government Documentation Project, Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

GEORGIA GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTATION PROJECT

GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY

SERIES B: PUBLIC FIGURES

NARRATOR: GEORGE T. SMITH

INTERVIEWER: TOM CHAFFIN

DATES: AUGUST 19, 1992; AUGUST 20, 1992

[TAPE 1, SIDE A]

CHAFFIN: Last time we talked, which was for a profile that appeared in the Fulton

County Daily Report on October 11, 1989, for anyone who is interested, you talked about

your judicial and political philosophy and tendency to a kind of Populist approach to

government. There seems to be another theme in your political career that you didn't

really talk about and it interests me that you come from a rural background in south

Georgia. It seemed like from the beginning when you entered politics, at least when you

got to the state legislature, your star was, in a sense, hitched to the rising--the ascendancy

of the more urban politics of the state, with the election of Governor Sanders; etc.--is that

fair?

SMITH: Yeah--Are we on?

CHAFFIN: With the demise of the Talmadge--Yeah.

SMITH: The interesting thing about it is, although I was born and reared on a small Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library farm in southwest Georgia, very poor, I was elected by the urban vote. And that had a

couple of reasons for it. The Lieutenant Governor at that time, Peter Zack Geer, had the

backing of the Talmadge group, generally speaking; and I was--of course, got to be

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

Speaker of the House with the influence of Governor Sanders, which--and I was also the

presiding officer of the House, of course, when--well, it started in 1962 before I became

Speaker in 1963; and I helped at that time to reapportion the Senate. And that got the

Senate more urban. And, then in 1963, from there on, I was in on all of the

reapportionments up through and including the redistricting of the Congressional districts

in 1964.

CHAFFIN: I wanted to ask you, though, when you were first getting into politics, did

you have any ties to any of--I am thinking of Frank Twitty, Fred Hand--

SMITH: Yes, now, they really put me in the right place to do what I did. I was

born and raised in Mitchell County. Frank Twitty was born and raised in Mitchell

County, and Fred Hand was born and raised in Mitchell County. And my folks

supported them politically. Mine and my wife's. My wife was born and raised in

Mitchell County. Our people always supported those people. And when I came to the

House in 1959, George L. Smith was Speaker of the House; and Frank Twitty was a Floor

Leader for Governor Vandiver.

Frank had known all my people and all my people were still living in Mitchell

County, although I had moved to Grady County to practice law. He was very politically

conscious of that fact. And there had been a friendship of our people over the years.

Frank just--through Frank's influence, he just got me some super committee appointments

as a freshman. Just the kind of committee appointments you can stay in the legislature Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library for ten years and never get.

I got--I was on the Appropriations Committee--no, not the Appropriations

Committee--the Judiciary Committee, the University of Georgia Committee and what

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

they called the--ohhhh--it was a committee that all the Governor's legislation was placed

in; and I don't remember the name of it. But it was a top committee. And those were

three committees that you just don't get on. And they were all three committees sought

after heavily by everyone. So they put me in a position to be recognized. And, then, at

the end of my first term and the beginning of my second term, the third year I was in the

legislature, I was appointed vice-chairman of the Appropriations Committee. Good

Lord, you don't get on the Appropriations Committee when you've been there just three

years, much less be vice chairman. And, then, Jack Ray, who was chairman of that

committee, resigned to become state treasurer in December of '61; and I was made

chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

Here I am chairman of the Appropriations Committee and hadn't been in the

House three years yet! Well, the Appropriations Committee didn't play the part then that

it does now in the overall scheme of things. But the legislation was born and created,

drawn up, introduced and passed in 1962 by the Appropriations Committee, of which I

was chairman; and that legislation is still in place, with certain refinements. And I went

from the Appropriations Committee then to the Speaker of the House, because--simply

because having been chairman of the Appropriations Committee, that gave you some

name recognition--politically, locally, I mean--on the hill.

So when Carl started running for Governor, he asked me to support him; and I

did. And in print, it looked good for the chairman of the Appropriations Committee to Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library endorse and support Carl Sanders. So I supported Carl Sanders. And the people who

had the seniority and the experience and the background to be Speaker of the House when

Carl was elected governor all supported Marvin Griffin. So when Marvin was defeated

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

and Carl was elected, as Charlie Pannell told me, he said: 'You are all we've got left.'

Well, that didn't bother me as long as they elected me Speaker of the House. And so

Carl got behind me, and I was elected Speaker of the House.

That's the real history of how it came about, simply because of Frank Twitty's

friendship with our families over the years. He just put me in and just kept me right

there in the spotlight.

CHAFFIN: I am still not clear. How did you end up with--why not Vandiver?

SMITH: Why?

CHAFFIN: How did you come to--in a sense, Sanders represented a more urban

constituency.

SMITH: Yeah.

CHAFFIN: How did you end up gravitating towards him?

SMITH: Sanders--whenever I supported him and helped him get elected, as Speaker

of the House, naturally, I gravitated toward him because he was my friend. He was the

one who got me in the position I was in. See, you support the hand that feeds you or

selected you, whichever way you want to put it. So I gravitated toward him. So when I

ran against Peter Zack Geer in '66, I was referred to in the rural areas as a liberal, of

course, because I was--and the urban areas are the ones that selected--elected me. I didn't

carry but forty counties--I think it was forty--thirty-nine or forty counties out of a hundred

and fifty-nine and won the election something like by forty, fifty, or sixty thousand votes. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library CHAFFIN: Well, were you concerned about losing your main constituency base in the

rural--

SMITH: I didn't ever have a rural constituency. I just had one county, Grady

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

county. I never did have a constituency in the rural areas, as such, because the people

that--you see, when the reapportionment came along and the new congressional districts, I

stuck with the urban people in contending that they should have districts within

themselves not watered down by large areas outside. I was the first person to go on

record, public record, as favoring DeKalb County being a congressional district within

itself. Had a meeting out there one night. I don't know who it was--had the meeting

while the legislature was in session, in '64--dealing with

reapportionment--redistricting--congressional districts. And they had it in one of the

federal savings and loans banks out there. The whole question--I was the program, the

Speaker of the House; and the whole question, I knew, had to deal with how I felt about

reapportionment--or redistricting the congressional districts. And I was the program, and

I got up and Jim--

CHAFFIN: Mackay.

SMITH: Jim Mackay was presiding over the program. He was in the legislature at

that time. And Jim was wanting to be the--wanting to run for Ccongress. Jim got up

and introduced me as Speaker of the House and sat down. And they said: 'Say a few

words. Make a talk, and then we are going to ask questions.' Well, I made my

acknowledgements, and then I said: 'Now, I know what you folks are meeting here

tonight for.' And it was headlines on the paper next morning. I said: 'I tell you now, I

think I will support and work for a congressional district composed of DeKalb County Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library only.' That broke up the meeting. That's all they were there for. They just broke up the

meeting. So we socialized the rest of the night. So you can understand now why I

carried DeKalb County by sixty-nine percent in the Lieutenant Governor's race of '66.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

And that set the tone for me being urbanized because I took the position that--Well, I took

the position with Fulton, too, that that's the way it ought to be done.

CHAFFIN: It seems like there was a whole generation of Georgia political leaders that

came, like yourself, that came from rural backgrounds--went off to World War II, saw a

lot of the world, and then came back, maybe changed in a sense and really kind of hit the

ground running and came to power with the rising--with the ascendancy of the cities and

state politics. Does that ring true to you?

SMITH: That's true in some instances. But we anticipated and saw the demise of

the county unit system and the rise of the urban vote. And that's the way we aimed

our--we aimed ourselves. It cost me--whenever Lester Maddox ran against me in 1970

and beat me--it cost me that time. I just wasn't able to garner enough votes because even

in the urban areas at that time, the election of--Lester Maddox and I ran for Lieutenant

Governor in '70--was held--One week before Monday the election was held--the

following Tuesday--that's eight or nine days later--the Monday before, school started for

the first time in the history of this state it was totally integrated by the Supreme Court.

And that's the only reason Lester Maddox beat me. If they had not totally integrated the

schools when they did, I'd have won that. You see, that was in September before the

election was held. That was one of the reasons the election was pulled back from

September into August because the school thing was such a terrible issue back in those

days. The people ran on the schools' issue. You couldn't get out on anything else. And Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library even enough of the urban people were mad at the government for ramming that thing

through, and this was a protest vote for Lester Maddox; and I lost by twelve thousand

votes. Otherwise, I'd a won that thing.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

CHAFFIN: Speaking of school segregation--you were--The Sibley Commission was

established in 1960?

SMITH: 1960. I'm pretty sure it was 1960--It was 1960. George Busbee

introduced the resolution. Do you know why George Busbee introduced the resolution?

CHAFFIN: That's what I'm here for.

SMITH: You don't know. The leadership was looking around. As a rule--every

Speaker and his power group has a rule every two years when the new legislators would

come in, they would pick one or two or three of the new legislators--I don't know what

they based it on, but they picked them and included them in their group. That was to

broaden their power base and to keep the new blood coming in. And I was made part of

that group by Frank Twitty and George L. Smith--Frank Twitty being the reason for it.

Hi Undercott was one; and Render Hill was one; and there were three or four or five of

us. That's how--another way I got in. I was part of the group on the inside. So when

the integration thing came down to the rub and George L. and them was advocating

closing the schools--And I can't remember whether this came before or after the brouhaha

over at the University of Georgia about closing the schools whenever the young woman

was going to enter, and they had all the troubles over there. I can't remember whether

this was before or after that. But anyway, they came to the conclusion that something

had to be done. And they hit upon the idea of forming a commission to go about the

state and holding hearings; and they anticipated that these hearings would be so strongly Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library in favor of closing the schools that they could use this as a background of closing down

the schools. And the next thing they wanted was somebody that was not close to the

leadership in the House and in the Senate-- And from--not a big city but a moderate

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

sized city. And so they lit upon George Busbee.

This was done in a private meeting. I don't know whether George to this day

knows that he was selected, but they never did tell him he was selected. He was sold

upon the idea. I don't care what George says. I know what I'm talking about. And he

was selected as the one to do it because Albany was not the smallest town in the state and

certainly not the biggest. But it was big enough that you could call him a city boy. And

they figured they would have to go with that or they couldn't get anybody. So they

selected him and settled on him and went to him and George L. got it done that way. He

introduced the resolution, and that's how the resolution was introduced. The resolution

was introduced with the idea that the general public in these hearings would say: 'Close

the schools.' But they got the surprise of their lives when they reversed it. And the

hearings positively showed that Georgia people didn't want the schools closed; so to that

extent, they were reversed. But following then after what the Sibley Commission found

was the mood of the people. And that's how the Sibley Commission came into being.

And that's how it turned out because people all over the state didn't want the schools

closed.

CHAFFIN: So, the Vandiver Administration subsequently decided to recommend the

implementation--

SMITH: --Of the Sibley Commission.

CHAFFIN: So that was the governor's [inaudible]. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: Oh, sure. He followed what the people said. He followed exactly what

the people said. The people said: 'We don't want our schools closed.'

So, then, they set about trying to find a solution to the problem. And that's when

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

all the laws were passed and the theme was set up toward integration rather than--

CHAFFIN: So I guess with the implementation of that as far as things going on in the

state--that implementation of the Sibley Commission is coupled with the Gray v. Sanders

decision [inaudible] and the federal court decision sounding the death knell for the county

unit vote--those really inaugurated a new era.

SMITH: A new era. See, I took the position we ought to not close the schools.

Whenever the big deal was going on at the University about whether they would let--the

young lady's name was Holmes--Wasn't her name Holmes?

CHAFFIN: Hold on a second.

[break]

CHAFFIN: So, anyways, we just determined on a little break the troubles at the

University of Georgia took place in January of '61. So, presumably, that produces more

incentive to go ahead and recommend the implementation of the Sibley Commission?

SMITH: Let me read this--Whenever Charlayne Holmes-

CHAFFIN: Hunter--

SMITH: Hunter, excuse me, the Charlayne Hunter affair took place at the

University, Governor Vandiver had a called meeting in his office on a Sunday afternoon.

This was in 1960. And I was included in that group and was invited to his office. It

was a group of us, the leaders. And I being one of those freshmen that the Speaker had

gotten into his crowd, I was there. Carl Sanders was there, Frank Twitty, the Speaker, Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library the Governor, Jack Ray. There must have been fifteen or twenty of us. And this

discussion of Charlayne Hunter was the sole thing because Frank, the Speaker, and Jack

Ray and the Floor Leader, took a very strong point in advising them: 'Shut the school

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

down. Don't let her go.' They were really behind that thing.

So we were in that meeting in the governor's office that afternoon and deciding

what to do, trying to come to a conclusion. But out of all those people there, there wasn't

but two people who spoke up and said: 'Let her go to school and forget about it!' That

was Carl Sanders and me. We were the only two. The rest of them said: 'No.' And,

of course, I don't ever remember being invited to another one of those meetings after

that. Carl and I were the only two that suggested that the sensible thing to do was just to

stop all this commotion and let her go to school. But they didn't follow our advice.

And--anyway, they didn't follow our advice.

CHAFFIN: Was the motivation behind the massive resistance following the '54 Brown

decision, at least here in Georgia--was that rooted in a genuine belief that raising the flag

of state sovereignty would eventually be vindicated or was that really just for public

consumption?

SMITH: Now, anything I say is my opinion based upon my association with the

people.

CHAFFIN: Sure, sure.

SMITH: I think, number one, it was political survival. I think in any social

uprising like this--if you want to call it an uprising--the politician thinks first of all about

survival politically. And he tries to figure out the smart thing to do to survive politically.

And that's his motivation. Now, he might even have a genuine conviction that Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library something else ought to be done. But he realizes that he cannot continue to be elected

politically if he takes that position.

If you don't believe it, George Wallace is a typical example. He got beat the first

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

time running as a liberal. He said: I'll never lose again. And he turned around being a

conservative, hating the blacks--or at least ostensibly hating the blacks. And he kept

getting elected, and it got back where he needed them again, he went on the other side--a

typical example.

Jimmy Carter--he took Maddox under one arm and Wallace under the other one

when he was running for governor against Carl Sanders--endorsed both of

them--endorsed Maddox as his running mate for lieutenant governor against me and took

them under, got elected; and in his inaugural address, kicked both of them out the front

door.

Now, he hasn't changed his--a leopard doesn't change spots overnight. In fact,

you just don't change a leopard's spots. If a man ever has a genuine conviction of

anything, he never changes--a genuine conviction. And Carter had no more use for those

two fellows than to get elected. And when he got through using them, they were off and

gone. His true colors came out. And that's what happens. That's the number one thing.

And when you pass that, it is hard to say what it is all about. Genuinely, they

were afraid of massive change. People are afraid of massive change. They didn't know

how much the government was going to enforce on them. It was something new. And

they were afraid of what it might do to their children, their families. They just didn't

know what might happen. Uncertainty is a foundation most about fear.

CHAFFIN: To back up a little, you--after you had been practicing law in Cairo--and Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library had been the solicitor of the city court and the city and county attorney. Is it true that you

originally got into politics as a way to move toward the appellate court?

SMITH: Yeah.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

CHAFFIN: Have you told me that or I've read that or something?

SMITH: I wanted to be on one of the appellate benches. And I had noticed down

through the years that the way you got on the appellate bench was you went through the

legislature. You got in the legislature and, then, that's where you got your appointment.

And I had that in the back of my mind. I hadn't planned to get into politics right at the

time I did. I got in on the local level. People ask me over and over again: 'How do you

get into politics?' I can't tell you how to get into politics. And, seriously, I am going to

answer your question further in a minute--to give you a little background.

CHAFFIN: Please give as much background as possible.

SMITH: The way I got into politics--when I went to Cairo--Grady County, Georgia

to practice law, Mr. Sam Cain told me that one of the reasons he took me is that he didn't

think I would be involved in politics. And I assured him I wasn't because I had no desire

to be in politics. But, then, I hadn't had time to settle down and realize what it took to

get where I wanted to go. After I had been there a year, I was elected county--I mean,

city attorney--less than a year, I was elected city attorney. And this was a county and city

I had lived in less than a year. Folks say: 'How in the world did you do that?'

It was very simple, very simple. I was a member of the First Baptist Church, and

there was a new mayor and council elected; and the majority of them were Baptists. And

I was the only Baptist lawyer in town. And it is just that simple. That's how I got in

politics. Ability, qualifications, background didn't have a cotton-picking thing to do with Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library it. I was the only Baptist lawyer in Cairo. And so the majority of the Baptists all went

to the First Baptist Church, and they elected me county attorney--and I was off--I mean,

city attorney. And then I was elected county attorney the next year. How did I get that?

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

I was the only lawyer in Grady County that three members of the five-member board

could agree on. I was elected three to two. Now, that's how I got to be the county

attorney. It had nothing to do with background and qualifications. And that's one of the

mistakes that people make for running on their qualifications. You aren't elected on

qualifications, has nothing in the world to do with it because, basically speaking, most

everybody has a good--given the chance, most everybody, if they are willing to apply

themselves can succeed in a given political field as the other one--just given the chance.

Just give them a chance. Now, if they want to, give them a chance. If they don't want

to, I don't care what you give them.

So then I got to be that, and that was in 1940 [?] elected city attorney--and 1949

county attorney--1950 I was elected solicitor of the state court. How did that happen?

Nobody in the county would run for the cotton-picking place but me.

CHAFFIN: So solicitor of the state court?

SMITH: City court, it was called then, City Court of Cairo, but it is a county-wide

court. It is the same as a state court now. And they changed it to the state court of

Grady County now. I ran for that because no other lawyer in the county would run for

the place. And I being the youngest lawyer there, they usually foisted that upon him.

That's the way I got to be solicitor of the state court--city court. And, you see, a man's

ability doesn't always have a thing in the world to do with his being cast into a political

situation. And by that time, I was liking it. I found out I liked it. And, then, is when I Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library got to looking at how you get to be on the appellate courts. I decided, in that process, I

wanted to be on the appellate courts. And that might be because there were two other

people who came from Grady County, Judge Bell and Judge--I can't think of his name.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

CHAFFIN: Is that Griffin Bell?

SMITH: No, no, not Griffin Bell--Judge--I don't remember his name. We always

called him Judge Bell--two different people altogether--Judge Bell and Judge--He was

chief justice. It doesn't come to mind. He was chief justice. That probably got me

thinking about it, and I just wanted to be an appellate court judge, and I saw that was the

only way you could get there. So I planned to run for the legislature sometime. But I

hadn't planned to run when I did because I thought I was a little young to start out that

early.

But the way I ran for the legislature, this is the nearest I have ever come to being

drafted to run for anything--

CHAFFIN: This was 1958.

SMITH: This is 1958, when I ran for the legislature.

CHAFFIN: So you would have been--You were born in 1916? What was your

birthdate?

SMITH: 10-15-16. Yeah, I was born in 1916, so I was about-- This was 1958, so

I was about 42 years old, right? Yeah, 42 years old. I believe that's right. Yes, 42

years old--42 and 16 makes 58. 42 years old. So I wasn't thinking about running for the

legislature. But Grady County, up until that time, had never had a legislator to serve two

consecutive terms. And the legislator they had in there was an overweight big heavyset

fellow who just slept through the entire term. He didn't know what was taking place. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library And he and then the editor of the local newspaper--they didn't want to be

legislators--were the only two that were running.

CHAFFIN: Do you remember their names?

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

SMITH: Yeah. One of them was Bob Wynn, who was editor of the paper. And

the other was --it will come to me directly. Bob Wynn was editor of the paper, and the

other one was [end of tape 1, Side A--interview and transcript continue on Side B of Tape

1.]

[Tape 1, Side B]

CHAFFIN: You were just saying--besides Bob Wynn, your other opponent?

SMITH: Was Roy Perkins.

CHAFFIN: Roy Perkins?

SMITH: Roy Perkins, P-e-r-k-i-n-s [spelling]. Roy Perkins and Bob Wynn were

my opponents. Roy Perkins was the incumbent.

CHAFFIN: Okay, and you defeated them with a vote that exceeded their combined

vote.

SMITH: Um-hm [indicating affirmative].

CHAFFIN: And, if you don't mind repeating this, you--

SMITH: I beat both of them put together.

CHAFFIN: Tell me your campaign strategy. You got a map of the county.

SMITH: The way I ran the race, I knew I was running against the incumbent and the

newspaper editor. The way I ran the race, I got me a map of the county and cut it off in Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library segments, marked it off in segments, and got in my little ole Jeep station wagon and went

from house to house in the areas outside the city limits of Cairo and visited with them and

shook hands with them and told them I wanted them to vote for me. And that was the

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

way I approached it. I had been moderator for the Grady County Baptist Association for

five years and had been the clerk of it for nine years. That's fourteen years I had been

one or the other in the Baptist Association; and eighteen thousand people were in Grady

County with 23 Baptist churches. If you wasn't a Baptist, somebody had been messing

with you. The Baptists and kudzu had about taken the county over. And I just went

around and shook hands with them and told them I wanted them to vote for me. And

that's what it took to do it. And they voted for me.

CHAFFIN: And you were saying that it was not expressed positions on issues or for

your qualifications-

SMITH: No. No, the qualifications, issues, promises had nothing to do with it. It

was never brought up. I ran four different terms--for four different terms, and I never

made a promise to do anything to anybody. I did a good deal, but I didn't-- Back it up,

back up, back up. I made one promise. I did make a promise, too. And I can't

remember what it was. This just occurred to me. I can't remember what it was.

Governor Vandiver was wanting to do something. God, it had to do with money some

way or another. And I can't remember what it was. And it affected Grady County.

Well, it affected all the counties, materially. And I had promised them that I would vote

against that bill; and, then, when Vandiver brought it up, because of the position I was in

with George L. and Ray and Frank Twitty, they all felt like--and I did, too--that I ought to

vote for the Governor and support it. And I went back, and we had a called meeting of Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library the Chamber of Commerce for Cairo and Grady County. And I sat down and presented

it to them, what the position was, and what I would like to do--would they release me

from that promise? And they voted unanimously to release me from it. I did promise

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

that thing. I can't remember what it was.

CHAFFIN: Okay, but you--over--as you continued in politics, it did involve your own

set of issues and political philosophy; but you are saying that that point, it wasn't that you

were challenging the vested interests--

SMITH: No.

CHAFFIN: These two opponents?

SMITH: No, you were just challenging their popularity is what it amounted to,

name recognition and popularity.

CHAFFIN: The other thing, we were talking about your involvement as chairman of

the Appropriations Committee--

SMITH: Yes--

CHAFFIN: And sort of the beginnings of the legislation specifically of re-writing the

budget laws.

SMITH: That came about as a result of the vote by the legislature in 1961 to try to

get an appropriation bill passed. We passed our own appropriation bill, the legislature

did, and it went to the senate. And the senate threw ours out, threw the legislature's out,

enacted what the governor wanted, sent it back. We got in a dog fight over that, and

whereas, we got about 135 votes the first time around, we got about sixty-nine the sixth

time around, which was insufficient. And Charlie Pannell was handling the floor leading

job for Vandiver in that case because Frank Twitty was on the other side. All the House Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library leadership was on the other side. What the House leadership was trying to do was to

pass an appropriations bill that they wanted and in defiance of the Governor because up

until then, the Governor had--he had what we called hip-pocket financing of government

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

because the appropriation laws at that time were written in such a way that unless you

enacted a new appropriations bill every two years, you continued to travel on the old

appropriations bill, and you did not have to account for how the money was spent except

for the amount that was included in the last appropriations bill. Well, the income of the

state was increasing. So all that money over and above that set out in the last

appropriations bill, the Governor could spend it as he pleased, as long as it was legal.

We called it a 'hip pocket government'--the hip pocket financing the government because

he could spend it on roads, wherever he wanted to, anything like that. And the

legislature was trying to stop that--and with the leadership of--Jack Ray was the fellow

that really wanted to stop it.

Now, he sold George L. Smith, who was the Speaker at that time, and Frank

Twitty, who was the Floor Leader for the Governor, on the idea of how much power it

would give the legislature. But Jack was really very conscientious and believed in that

the legislative branch should be independent from the Governor; and that would be the

greatest move towards independence they could do, was to start doing the appropriating.

And that was the beginning of independence because when George L. came back as

Speaker after I went out, after I was elected Lieutenant Governor and Lester Maddox was

governor, George L. and the legislature did declare that independence and elected their

own Speaker, separate and apart from anything the Governor had to do with it.

We passed that legislation in 1962, the new appropriations bill, we called it. And Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library it set out the present--basically, the present appropriations bill.

CHAFFIN: This is pre-reapportionment.

SMITH: Yeah, this is before reapportionment. We had the first reapportionment in

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

October, 1962, that was the Senate reapportionment.

CHAFFIN: And you seem to be saying, though, that you attribute just as much to

Ray's tenacity as to any kind of historical trend?

SMITH: Oh, yeah--yeah, yeah. He just had it in his mind that he wanted to do this,

and he pushed and shoved for it. And that played a large part in me being named vice

chairman because I believed in the same thing he did. And he wanted a vice chairman

on there that would carry out what he wanted done. And we both felt that way about

it--it ought to be appropriated by the legislature, not there for the governor to spend as he

saw fit.

CHAFFIN: You said that the reapportionment process that was mandated by the

federal court--the federal court decisions of '62 was a painstaking process?

SMITH: Very painstaking, yes, it was. It was a process that the legislature didn't

take kindly to because many of them would be reapportioned out of their districts; and

many of them would be combined with other incumbents; and they would be running

against each other. And it was just change that they didn't want to take part in, and they

resisted it until the Court said: 'You've got to do it.' And the legislature isn't no more

different than anyone else. They don't want--like change. Because when you change,

somebody has to lose. And nobody wanted to decide who was going to lose.

CHAFFIN: Was the readjustment of the U.S. House districts, was that any more or

less, messy? Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: Ohhh--oh, that was a donnybrook.

CHAFFIN: That was in sixty--

SMITH: In '64. That was a donnybrook. You see, whenever this

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

reapportionment--redistricting congressional districts was upon us, I went down and

talked to Carl Sanders who was the Governor; and I suggested to Mr. Carl that the thing

for him to do was to invite all the members of the Georgia House of Representatives--the

congressional members of the Georgia House of Representatives, to convene in Atlanta in

his office, and they would talk about reapportionment. I said: 'Now, you need to talk to

them folks about it because if you don't talk with them, you are going to have trouble

because they are going to say that you tried to reapportion them and you are not even

talking to them about it.' So he did. They all came. I remember Mr.--Mr.--He was

from Milledgeville--oh, the man who was in there so long--

CHAFFIN: Up until when?

SMITH: Up until--He is Sam Nunn's uncle. What's that guy's name?

CHAFFIN: Carl Vinson?

SMITH: Carl Vinson was not there because he was retiring. And I talked to Carl

and I told him that I thought this was a good time to try redistricting because Carl Vinson

was retiring, and we might could shuffle those districts around with him retiring in such a

way to keep two incumbents from running against each other. That was what they were

mortally afraid of. So he thought--well, we had been talking about it before. And we

brought them down and Carl Vinson wasn't there. So we showed them how--none of

them liked it, but they realized we had to do it. So when we started

reapportioning--redistricting congressional districts, we ran into a bad situation down in Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library Lee County--the congressman from Lee County and house representative from that time

was--ahh--well, here I go again. I can't remember his name. He was the congressman

from Lee County.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

CHAFFIN: We can get that.

SMITH: All right, the congressman from Lee County-- And Lee County was in

the third congressional district. Well, it just threw the figures off all the way around. If

we could have gone in and put Lee County in the second congressional district,

everything would have been fine. It would have been easy--we could have done it in

nothing flat. But he and his friends wouldn't stand for that because he would be running

in a totally strange territory except for that one county. And he wanted to stay in his old

county. So every map we started, we started off with Lee County in the third district.

And it was a pain in the rear. You just would not realize how one county, having to lock

in one county, could throw the whole map out of kilter. But it did.

So, then we got another problem involved. That was the year that the court said

you couldn't have mixed drinks in Atlanta, not even in your own locker. That was the--I

don't remember who it was who filed a lawsuit, but it wound up that nobody could have

mixed drinks in Atlanta, not any way. You couldn't even pour it out of your own brown

bag.

CHAFFIN: This came out of what?

SMITH: Somebody filed a lawsuit that said it was illegal to serve mixed drinks in

Atlanta or wine or--

CHAFFIN: It was a state court ruling?

SMITH: Yes--well, it was a Superior Court ruling. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library So that shut down conventions, and the conventions were all leaving town. And

Ivan Allen, who was the mayor, was tearing his hair out because all the conventions were

leaving town. And Jack Etheridge, who is a judge, was in the House at that time, came

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

by and asked me, says: 'I know you are a tee-totaler, but is there anything we can do

anything about this mixed drinking bill? Now that all the conventions are leaving town,'

said, 'we don't know what we are going to do about it.' And we sat down and talked and

he suggested what would I think about local option bill. I said: 'Well, I'd go along with

local option bill, provided you let it be local option. Let the people vote, and I have no

objection to it.'

We went and talked to Carl about it, and he agreed to it. So we passed it through

the House as a local bill, just for Fulton County only. It got on to the Senate, and Peter

Zack was Lieutenant Governor and got very moralistic and said that he was going to let

the people decide about it. He was not going to pass the local bill, he was going to pass

it as a piece of legislation. So he put it in front of the whole floor. Finally, got it passed

over there, and it got back to us, got back to us; we had a donnybrook. Then, the rural

boys got to trading with the city boys. The city boys said: 'You vote for our liquor bill,

we will vote to keep you in.' It was an impossible nightmare. And it got so involved.

That was the night the clock was torn off the wall; and we stayed in session until about

three o'clock in the morning, and we didn't even have a bill that set out the congressional

redistricting. We just drew a map showing which was going to be one, two, three, four,

five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and passed the map and then wrote the bill after the

legislature was adjourned, and all of those things. And it got to be a donnybrook. It

was rough. And we finally got it through. And that's the way we got it through. It was Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library something else. Rough.

CHAFFIN: Denmark Groover was messing with the clock?

SMITH: Yeah, Denmark swears that he went up there to turn--to plug the clock

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

back in because I had it unplugged. Here's twelve o'clock--getting at least eleven thirty,

and we were supposed to turn out at twelve and sine die automatically, so I sent them up

there, someone up there to unplug the clock. Then, Denny went back up there. He was

going to re-plug it. And he almost fell over the railing, reaching down to re-plug it.

And in grappling and grasping and almost falling over the railing, he knocked the clock

down. He didn't tear it down intentionally. It was not an intentional act. Of course,

that got out that it was intentional. And it makes a better story, you see, if you put it out

that he tore it down intentionally, but he didn't. The clock fell on the floor, and a fellow

named Odum--[interruption]--

CHAFFIN: You said someone stomped on the clock?

SMITH: Oh, yes, a legislator named Odum. They called him "Husky" Odum, from

Albany, stomped the clock to pieces. And we finally got that redistricting bill passed

about three o'clock. That was three hours after we were supposed to have adjourned.

And we passed nothing in the world but a map. Nobody knew it, and we adjourned to

the legislative council's office and they drew the bill to fit the map before daylight the

next morning.

CHAFFIN: So--

SMITH: Somebody has said, you know, that if people saw and knew how sausage

and legislation was created, nobody would fool with either one of them anymore.

It was something else. But we passed both of them. We passed the mixed drink Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library bill and the other bill. It was a struggle.

CHAFFIN: But it was worked out, in principle, as this trade-off between mixed drinks

and--[inaudible].

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

SMITH: Yeah, um-hm--mixed drinks and the redistricting crowd. It was the rural

and the city--rural and urban got together and finally worked it out.

CHAFFIN: Again, this was an issue where the politician from south Georgia is in line

with the urban interest?

SMITH: Yeah, to work it out: 'You help us stay in, and we will help you get your

liquor.'

CHAFFIN: What about the Julian Bond episode?

SMITH: The Julian Bond episode was a very interesting episode. I had some

interesting things take place when I was Speaker of the House.

CHAFFIN: By the way, that was January '66.

SMITH: Was it January of '66; I didn't know whether it was '65 or '66. We had a

redistricting--not a redistricting, but we had a--in 1965, we had a big reapportionment;

and so many blacks were elected in Atlanta, about eighteen or something like that.

Well, I was in Sylvester, Georgia, making a speech to the FFA boys--that's the

Future Farmers of America boys. And I got a telephone call from my secretary, Yvonne

Redding, who said all heck had broken loose. And I said why was that, and she said:

Well, Julian Bond has burned his draft card and the legislator from Swain--er--Statesboro,

Georgia, who was active in the Legion, and Sloppy Floyd, who was active in the Legion,

had gotten together and drawn up a resolution to keep him from being seated in the

legislature. Well, the legislature was meeting in a few days. I don't know just how soon Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library it was supposed to be. And a press conference was being held by all sides.

I said: I'm on the way in.

So I got in, and the first thing I did was call Senator Leroy Johnson--although I

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

was in the House. I wanted to talk to him--asked what it was all about. And he said that

a group of activists had gotten hold of Julian and convinced Julian as a protest against the

Viet Nam War, as I recall, to burn his draft card and that all heck had broke loose. And I

asked him what could be done about it. Now, this was all before the legislature

convened on Monday. And he said he didn't know. Then, I talked to Carl Sanders and

some other people, and we figured out if we could--Jones Lane was the legislator's name

from Statesboro that led the fight along with Sloppy Floyd--if we could get something

worked out where he would apologize or something like that and we could seat him.

That's what we kept working at. Well, about the time I'd get my crowd to agree that they

would accept something like that--I say 'my crowd'--the crowd that was opposing--it

wasn't my crowd; it was the crowd that was opposing it--then, Julian's group would

convince him not to do it.

Then, we would just see-saw it back and forth. Leroy Johnson and I were in

constant contact with each other the whole weekend from Thursday until Monday

morning. We knew where each other was every hour of the day because things were

changing that fast, and I never could get anybody to agree at the same time. On Sunday

night, up at the old Henry Grady where everybody met to eat and politic, Jones Lane met

me in the hallway and he said: 'George T if you don't quit trying to settle this Bond thing

and let it go on through with us and not seat him--if you and Carl Sanders don't quit doing

this, I am going to have a press conference and brand y'all as being nigger lovers in the Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library State of Georgia and see what that does to you.'

But we didn't quit, but we didn't accomplish anything. So they voted not to seat

him. And that brought on problems. So after they voted not to seat him, we had to have

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

a hearing. And I sat down with the prosecutors--I think Denmark Groover was the main

man prosecuting and then Julian Bond's defendants--and we sat down in my office and

figured out the ground rules of how we were going to run it. And we were going to let

the judicial--judi committee--judiciary committee be the jury--the judiciary committee of

the House be the jury. So we took all day to try a case; we tried it just like a regular case.

I was the presiding judge. We put it to the Judiciary Committee. As I recall, there

were five of them to seat Julian and the rest of them were against it, which made it

overwhelming.

We got so much emotion in that thing, there was no way in the world you could

get a sensible thing out of it--good, solid thinking people that I was amazed at, voted not

to seat him.

I kept telling them to vote him and to forget him. That was the proper way to do

it, that we weren't going to gain anything this way. But nobody would listen, so they

unseated him--would not seat him. Then, of course, he appealed it to the district court;

then the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme

Court of the United States said that you could not systematically just keep a man from his

seat who had been elected by the people and said they had to seat him.

CHAFFIN: Which district court judge upheld this ruling?

SMITH: I really don't know.

CHAFFIN: Bell? Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: Bell is on the Appellate Court--on the Fifth Circuit, as I recall. I don't

remember who upheld it.

CHAFFIN: [Inaudible] Peter Zack Geer--

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

SMITH: Uh-huh.

CHAFFIN: He kind of figures as a nemesis of yours?

SMITH: Well, we were both--we had opposite views on things. Our philosophies

were different. Our approach to things was different. I was--I depended largely on my

own self to get where I was going, with what help I could get from Carl. And he was

dependent entirely upon the Talmadge group and Vandiver. So he felt like that he had a

built in -- a built in machine, I guess you would call it, and he couldn't lose. And he

didn't work hard in 1966. He just simply didn't work hard. He was careless. He

wouldn't go to the meetings, and Zack just didn't work hard. And he just got beat simply

because he underestimated his opposition.

CHAFFIN: You changed your campaign, and you ended up in a run-off with him,

right?

SMITH: Right.

CHAFFIN: I think you took a more aggressive style?

SMITH: What happened was I started off very naive--saying that I was going to run

a clean, upfront campaign, no mud slinging, just going to run on the issues, and the things

that I thought a lieutenant governor should do and should accomplish. The first thing I

said was that if after two years the legislature introduced a resolution to abolish the

lieutenant governor's office that I would not prevent it from going to the floor of the

House and the Senate for a vote. Well, the news media very quickly changed that. They Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library changed that to where I said that I would see to it that the people voted on whether to

retain the lieutenant governor's office or not. And then by the time I got around to

running four years later, they had changed that to saying that I had advocated the abolition

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

of the office and now I was running for it--just prostituted the heck out of everything I

said, because I never did say that. I just said that if--See, they kept putting resolutions in

and nobody let it pass. I said if they put the resolution in, I would let it pass, and if the

people wanted to vote on it, let them vote on it.

That was one of the things that I was saying and that I was going to be open and

above-board and not get into this mudslinging business. And I was going nowhere, and I

was just about like a turtle climbing out of a well with greasy sides. I was going up two

feet and sliding back three. The editor of the Constitution at that time was Reg Murphy.

He called me up and said: You can't possibly win this thing, and you ought to. I want

to meet with you and talk to you.

So he and I met at the coffee shop in the old Dinkler Plaza one morning at

breakfast. He told me, he said: You've got the jump on Peter Zack. You've got plenty

of things to jump on him about, and if you don't, you ain't gonna win because you are not

getting any press; you can't get on the front page.

He said: You just can't get there being nice.

I said: All right, what do you suggest?

He said: I suggest letting me write your first speech.

I said: All right.

He said: Who are you going to speak to next?

I said: Before the Jaycees--they called them--Not the Junior Jaycees--What you Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library call them, the young bunch?

CHAFFIN: Civitans?

SMITH: No, it's the Jaycees--not the junior Jaycees--the Junior Chamber of

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

Commerce, you know, you call them the Jaycees. Anyway--the Jaycees--under

thirty-five years old, businessmen under thirty-five years old--I'm going to speak to them.

He said: All right, I'll fix your speech up.

So he fixed me one up. And it was mean as a cat with a sore tail. So I went

down there and gave that speech. And it got on the front page of the papers. That was

the first time I had even been in them, much less on the front page, and I kept--

CHAFFIN: Did Murphy see to that as well?

SMITH: He helped, yes. He had somebody there to cover it and the whole thing.

Now, he was not editor at that time.

CHAFFIN: Editorial page editor--

SMITH: He was not editorial page editor either. He was just a political writer.

CHAFFIN: Oh, he was a reporter, then?

SMITH: He was a reporter, yeah, a political reporter for the capitol. He covered

the capitol. So I kept that tack up the whole time, and I stayed in the paper all the time.

And then is when I found out: You can't win being nice. I don't care what people say

about it. You can't win being nice. If you don't get on the other side, they just say, well:

He must be all right, or they would be saying something about it. So if he is all right,

just keep him in.

You've got to go after them. You've got to decide whether you want to win or be

nice. Don't kid yourself. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library CHAFFIN: It's a long way from that Jeep station wagon.

SMITH: A lonnnnng way from that Jeep station wagon.

CHAFFIN: You had to do more than just show up.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

SMITH: You had to do more than just show up. You had to do more than just

shake hands. You had to make some kind of issue, some kind of progress report. I

would not--if Peter Zack had not taken me so lightly, I could not have won that race. He

took me too lightly. And he had a right to; but there were two or three things that he did

that were just devastating to him. He never would show up for a breakfast meeting with

the women, although he would accept it. I don't know how many times he would do that.

And every time, the presiding lady said: Well, the other man didn't show up after he

promised to, so let's not show up at the polls to vote for him. Let's vote for George T.

Smith. And that was just breaking his neck.

My wife went on television, for the first time in the history of this state, that a

candidate's wife went on television and politicked for him. She did and made a fantastic

impression. She's good on television, makes a good appearance; she photographs well.

That was a turning point, but the real thing that got me going was that whenever there

was a bill introduced that [tape 1, side B ends here--interview continues on Tape 2, Side

A--transcript continues]

[Tape 2 Side A George T. Smith]

[recording starts mid-sentence]

SMITH: Zack-- Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library CHAFFIN: Yeah, against your political education in the '66 runoff against Peter Zack

Geer.

SMITH: All right, he told me--as I was saying--Reg Murphy told me I was going to

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

have to get jumping on him about some things, which I did, and Reg wrote that speech;

and after that, I was in the newspaper all the time. Zack took me for granted. He didn't

think I could win. One of the stories that I heard someone had him on a street in Albany,

asked him what he thought about having the Speaker of the House running against him

for Lieutenant Governor, he said: Well, he never did go rabbit hunting with a bear gun.

Well that made me mad, so whenever I would be tired and sleepy, I would just

work that much harder remembering what he said.

Then, he made a statement during the course of the campaign before a Jaycee

bunch again. At that time, we had to sign a statement to the fact that we would support

the Democratic nominee. You didn't have to take the oath. You didn't have to swear to

it--just sign a statement you'd do it. He made a speech one night, and they asked him if

he was going to support the Democratic nominees that year. And he said he didn't know

whether he was or not, it all depended on who they was. They said: But didn't you sign

a statement to the effect that you were going to support the Democratic nominees. And

he said: Yes, but I wasn't under oath when I signed it.

So they asked me what I thought about that. He had made the talk and already

gone when I got to the group; and they caught me time I got out of the car and wanted to

know what I thought about that, and I said: Well, now, let me think about that a minute.

Because I knew there was something I could probably make some political hay out

of--but I ask them to just give me a minute to think about it because it was totally Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library unexpected. I will shoot more of my hand with you before I get up to the platform and

talk because I wanted to think; and it finally hit what I wanted to do.

So I got up there, and I said: I want to preface my remarks by answering a

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

question the press had asked me. They had made the statement to me that the Lieutenant

Governor made the statement that he wasn't under oath when he pledged to support the

Democratic candidates; and therefore he wasn't bound by it. And I said: I just want to

ask you one question--Do you want to elect somebody Lieutenant Governor who has to be

under oath before you can believe what he says?

Boy, that just hit the news media, hit the news wires--all over this state. I

remember a little ole two-line editorial in the Macon Telegraph; and it was picked up all

over the state, to the effect that: Do you want to elect a man lieutenant governor who has

to be under an oath before you can believe what he says? They just ran that thing

through him. But the real background--the real background that started downhill, was

during the legislative session in '66--a senator from this county here--I don't recall his

name right now--introduced a bill in the senate a bill that made it against the law to sell

beer, wine or liquor--to advertise beer, wine, or liquor in a newspaper, radio, or television

within the state of Georgia. Well, everyone knew it was unconstitutional. But the bill

was done nevertheless. And all these people--newspaper, television, and everything

else--went to him, Peter Zack, and said: At least give us a chance to be heard on this bill

before you let it out of committee and let it pass--let it be voted upon. Because it being a

liquor bill, they figured it was going to pass. He said: All right.

Well, it was in the Rules Committee; he put everything in the Rules

Committee--the bill came up in the Rules Committee about eleven o'clock one Monday Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library morning. Zack let it out of the Rules Committee on the floor of the Senate, put it on the

general calendar at about two o'clock, voted on it about 2:30 or 3:00 and passed it out;

and never did let these people know anything about it. The first thing they knew about it,

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

they heard it on radio and television. They went wild! And Zack thought, me being a

tee-totaler and very active in the Baptist Church throughout the state, he thought I would

panic when he sent that liquor bill to me.

And I knew he thought I'd panic, but I meant to make him eat that thing; so

whenever I found that it had passed, Aubrey Morris had told me earlier in the week that

there was something afoot in the Senate--

CHAFFIN: WSB--

SMITH: WSB's roaming--

CHAFFIN: Reporter.

SMITH: Reporter. He told me something was in the mill, and he would let me

know, said it had to do with liquor--they are after you and trying to set you up. So he

was waving frantically, and I told him to come in; and he told me about this bill that was

on the way over, and it gave me a few minutes to think about it. So I walked off the

podium--turned it over to somebody--and walked off the podium, and sat down in my

office and told my secretary that I didn't want anybody to call me, that I had something

that I had to think about. So I thought it through, and my first thought was to pass a

bone-dry--amend it by passing a bone-dry bill and send it back to the senate. And I soon

dismissed that. I said: That's just exactly what he'd like for me to do. He'd say I was

dealing irresponsibly with the matter.

CHAFFIN: I'm sorry--amend it by doing what to it? Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: By putting a bone-dry--amend it by putting a bone-dry amendment on

there. That would dry up the state where you couldn't sell--

CHAFFIN: Oh, complete prohibition.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

SMITH: Complete prohibition. But I said: That's not the thing to do. That's the

very thing he'd like for me to do, then he could say I had been irresponsible--wasn't facing

up to the situation.

CHAFFIN: Who suggested that you do that?

SMITH: Huh?

CHAFFIN: Who suggested that you do that?

SMITH: Nobody. I was talking to myself.

CHAFFIN: Oh, okay.

SMITH: I was in the office going through the things to do.

CHAFFIN: Oh.

SMITH: And I said: I can't do that because that's exactly what he'd like me to do.

Then he would throw the whole thing out and say that he was looking after the people's

business, and look what I have done. In the meantime, they are walking up and down the

hall and saying: Let's see what George T. and the Baptists do about this bill.

So I had told the secretary not to let anybody in there, the media or anybody else,

until I got my mind together about it. And Sloppy Floyd came in anyhow. He just

busted in and said: What are we going to do about this thing?

I said: Well, what do you think we ought to do, and--

CHAFFIN: And Sloppy Floyd at this point is in the--

SMITH: He is in the House of Representatives-- Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library CHAFFIN: Was he umm--

SMITH: He was not Appropriations Chairman, no; he was a member of the

Appropriations Committee but not the Appropriations Chairman. He didn't get to be the

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

Appropriations Chairman until George L. came along.

CHAFFIN: Okay.

SMITH: I appointed him to the Appropriations Committee, though.

He came in and said: What are we going to do? And I said, well, let me ask you

this: What would you do? He said: I would--this is right interesting--he said: I

would amend it by putting a bone-dry amendment on there and send it back to them.

I said: Think about this, Sloppy; isn't that exactly what they would like for us to

do, is do something irresponsible, so they could get out from under it all then? By

wiping the whole thing out and saying the House is irresponsible--we try to be

responsible about it, and they mess the whole thing up.

And he said: Yeah, you're right. He said: What are you going to do? I said:

I don't know. I'm thinking about it. Just give me some time to think about it.

So he left, and I came up with this idea that when the bill came across to the

House, I was going to tell the Clerk to lose the bill until next Wednesday--this was on a

Thursday--to next Wednesday, and then I was going to assign it to--I didn't tell him what I

was going to do--but then I was going to assign it to the Judiciary Committee instead of

the Temperance [?] Committee and take care of it that way.

So I went back out to the podium, and I told the Clerk to--when that bill came

up--but before I went back to the Committee--that's right, before I went back out there, I

sent for Robin Harris, who was Chairman of the Judi Committee-- Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library CHAFFIN: From DeKalb County--

SMITH: From DeKalb County. And I told Robin what I had in mind, and I said:

Robin, I am going to tell the Clerk to lose this bill until next Wednesday, and then I am

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

going to assign it to your committee next Wednesday morning. And I said: The minute

I assign it to your committee, I want you to call a committee meeting--[Interruption]

I got him in, and I said: This bill has come in. I am going to tell the Clerk to

lose it until next Wednesday. And, as soon as I--as the bill is called up next Wednesday,

I am going to assign it to the Judi Committee, and I want you to have a called meeting.

CHAFFIN: 'You' being Robin Harris?

SMITH: I was talking to Robin Harris, the chairman--Have a called meeting--and I

said--at that called meeting, I want you to assign this bill to a subcommittee, the chairman

of which is to be Wayne Snow. And I don't remember who the other two are now. And

I want them to write me an opinion that this bill is unconstitutional, which it was, it was

as unconstitutional as it could be.

And I said: Then, I am going to use that opinion by the subcommittee for them to

pass it back to the Judi Committee with the recommendation that it not pass simply

because it is unconstitutional. I said; Now, the reason I am setting it off so far is

because there'll be less than ten days left in the session next Wednesday; and there is no

way in the world that you can force a bill out of committee in the last ten days of the

session. The floor--you can't vote a bill out of committee on the last ten days of the

session. And I knew it would be set. He said: All right. So I lost the [bill] and by

next Monday, the senate was going crazy trying to figure out where the bill was, but

wouldn't anybody have the guts to ask. It came up Wednesday morning; I assigned it to Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library the Judi Committee; they had a meeting; they put it in Wayne Snow's committee; and it

came back either the last day or the next to the last day of the session recommending we

do not pass--the bill is unconstitutional. We killed it dead as heck.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

Now, in the meantime, the liquor people, the Falcons, the Braves--the [inaudible]

directors or whatever you call them with the liquor and all that are calling me up--saying

we want to come talk to you--I am saying: Don't come talk to me. I'll take care of the

bill; it is not going to pass. You can believe me. He said: But that's what Zack told us.

I said: Well, this ain't Zack. This is George T. Believe me, it will not pass.

Well, it didn't pass. Zack lost all the liquor people, the newspapers, the radio, the

television. He lost them all. He didn't get but one endorsement of a daily newspaper of

this state, and that was the Albany Herald. He just lost them all. There was a radio man

up here in this town. And he called me on the telephone that afternoon.

CHAFFIN: [Inaudible.]

SMITH: No, a radio man in this town. He owned and operated a radio station up

here. He called me that afternoon and said: I was going to support Zack all out. He

said: He's a liar, can't depend upon him. I can't see putting anybody in office or vote for

him if you can't depend upon him, he'll lie to you. We didn't ask him to kill the bill.

We asked him to give us a chance to be heard. He wouldn't even do that.

He said: I'm for you. I'm not only for you. I'm sending a telegram out this

afternoon to every radio, television, and newspaper editor in this state and telling them

what a liar he is and what he's done to us.

CHAFFIN: I may have missed it, but what was his motivation in the first place?

SMITH: He thought that I would get the damn bill and panic! See? He thought Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library I'd panic. That's exactly what he thought I'd do, that I'd panic and then he would be the

good boy and say: Listen, this thing--I did lose control of it; it got out; but I got it back

and cleaned it up.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

CHAFFIN: Oh, okay.

SMITH: But what Zack didn't understand was this, Tom, the Baptists weren't going

to vote for Peter Zack Geer. I might have been an S.O.B. after all that was concerned.

But I was theirs. And he wasn't a Baptist, and he hadn't taken part in it. He wasn't

going to get the Baptist vote; there was no way in the world he could get it.

CHAFFIN: Also, in this same race we are talking about, the same upcoming race--but

on a slightly different subject: You won Mills Lane's support, didn't you?

SMITH: Yes, sure did.

CHAFFIN: How did that come about; was that critical?

SMITH: Well, the way I ran for Lieutenant Governor--I wanted to run--I was

approached by Buster Bird. He's in the party--at that time, it was--he had a law firm of

his own at that time. Since then, it has become something or another and Bird.

CHAFFIN: Don't worry about it--

SMITH: It's a new law firm, big law firm. Well, Buster Bird saw me and said: I

want you to run for Lieutenant Governor. And I said: Well, I'm interested. He said:

Well, I'll tell you what I'll do. He said: I'll get this man--it was this man that's the head

of this law firm--I am fixing to tell you--they combined with--He said: I'll get him. We

will meet at the Commerce Club for lunch next week and talk about it. And he got him

and brought him to the Commerce Club the next week, and we talked about it. And they

said: Yeah, we'll vote for you and work for you. Let's get you going. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library Then--Alston--Phil Alston. Alston Bird is the law firm now. And Phil said:

Well, let's get Mills Lane on this thing. So we set it up for the next week to get Mills

Lane; then, the three of us with Mills Lane the next week, talked about it. And Mills

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

said: That's fine--but Mills said: 'Let's run for governor instead'--I could've been

elected, too, if I had. But I demurred to that. I said: I'm new. It is going to take a lot

of money; I don't know whether I could get it or not. Of course, I didn't have sense

enough to know that Mills would finance it all. But I said: Ernie Vandiver is running;

and Ellis Arnall is running. I said: That's some heavy company to run against, and I

think we had just better stick with Lieutenant Governor this time and go with it next.

And he says: Well, whatever you say--but said: I'd go with you for governor.

CHAFFIN: What do you think drew him to you?

SMITH: He didn't like Peter Zack, and I was the only--see, nobody was going to

run against Peter Zack because they thought he couldn't be beat.

CHAFFIN: But he was also willing to support you over-

SMITH: All the rest--Oh, yes, for governor--

CHAFFIN: Vandiver--

SMITH: That's right. Over all the others. He had no political respect for them.

CHAFFIN: For any of them?

SMITH: For any of them.

CHAFFIN: [inaudible] with Arnall?

SMITH: I don't know, he just didn't think he was the man to make governor. He

never did tell me why, but he just was not for them. So Mills Lane got behind me, and

the Mayor Ivan Allen gave me the first dollar I ever had in that campaign. He gave me a Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library twenty-five hundred dollar contribution. That was the first contribution I had. Then

Mills Lane gave me the second of twenty-five hundred dollars. And with their

support--without his support, I couldn't have won.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

CHAFFIN: What was--do you remember how much money you spent?

SMITH: About two hundred thousand dollars. I know this--in the run-off, I spent

seventy-five thousand in the run-off.

CHAFFIN: About how much--roughly, about what percentage would have gone into

TV at that--

SMITH: Fifty thousand--about seventy-five went to television.

CHAFFIN: So, already TV took most of the money. That's the period when the

barbecues were kind of fading?

SMITH: Yeah, the barbecues were--we never did put one of them on. You know,

Zack and I got in the runoff. There were three of us running and Zack got 49.2 percent

of the vote on the first go around. And in the runoff, he got two hundred and thirty or

forty votes more than he got in the primary. And I got a hundred and thirty-nine

thousand more than I got in the primary.

CHAFFIN: Of course, the other race that year was Maddox and Callaway--

SMITH: Maddox and--You caught Maddox in a--

CHAFFIN: In the primary--

SMITH: In the primary, it was Maddox and Arnall. Now, Arnall and I met at the

Commerce Club; and Arnall made this proposition: Whenever we get right down to the

end of it, whichever one of us looks like we are the strongest that can beat Maddox, that's

who will run. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library But he forgot he made that promise. He went on and ran himself. But, anyway,

Arnall and Maddox got in the runoff.

CHAFFIN: Let me back up, though. You are saying Arnall said to you, before either

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

of you had registered to run, let's wait until virtually the deadline date and see who is the

strongest and then--

SMITH: That's right.

CHAFFIN: --You are saying that he just never got back to you--

SMITH: He never got back to remembering that. He ran for governor and Maddox

beat him in the runoff. Then, he got in the runoff with--he got in the election with the

Republican--

CHAFFIN: Arnall gets back in as a write-in--

SMITH: As a write-in candidate--biggest mistake ever been made in their

lives--why in the world folks did that, that's where people's animosity gets the upper hand

of their better judgment. They didn't want either one of them, and the record in this

country, in this state, shows you write-in candidates don't win. They came to me, asked

me to be the write-in candidate--

CHAFFIN: 'They' being--

SMITH: The people leading--one of them was the mayor at that time--who was the

mayor--little short, Jewish--

CHAFFIN: Massell.

SMITH: Massell. Massell called me personally and asked me. He said: We are

meeting tonight to settle on a candidate for the write-in candidate, I am going to nominate

you. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library I said: Mayor, let me make it perfectly clear, if y'all nominate me as the selection

for your write-in candidate, I will have a press conference at ten o'clock tomorrow

morning and denounce the whole thing because I believe in running by the rules, playing

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

with the rules. Y'all are making a mistake. You are going to mess this thing up because

you can't win on the write-in election because people don't like it.

CHAFFIN: Was your concern that they would give the election to Callaway?

SMITH: No, they would give it to Maddox because there was no way in the world

you could help but throw it in the legislature, Tom. And the legislature wasn't going to

vote for Callaway, a Republican and let a Republican replace all the Democrats in the

state. They wasn't going to do it. They didn't give a damn about Maddox, but they

wasn't going to let a Republican get to be the president--the governor; and I knew that. I

told them that. But they didn't pay any attention to me. They went on and the write-in

got sixty-five thousand votes--something like that.

CHAFFIN: But there was no chance that in the legislature Arnall could not have

emerged victorious?

SMITH: Yeah, if he had--whoever the Democrat was, that was who was going to

win in the legislature. And Maddox was the one in the legislature. The two highest

ones, that was who the legislature votes on, you see. And Arnall was third.

CHAFFIN: So you--

SMITH: See, nobody got a majority of the vote.

CHAFFIN: So you are saying that it was never in the cards for Arnall to place--

SMITH: No way.

CHAFFIN: He was going to be third. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: He was going to be third any way you looked at it. There just wasn't no

way.

CHAFFIN: The backers--Arnall's backers were hoping that he would place maybe

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

second?

SMITH: That's right, and then he would be elected by the Democrats, but no way he

could get it. Because people like Phil Alston--he despised Arnall. He wasn't the only

one. So it wasn't only the quote, unquote "rednecks" in the state that was going to vote

against Arnall; it was people like Phil Alston, folks like that. They never forgot what he

did back in the forties, and they didn't like it.

CHAFFIN: Like what?

SMITH: The liberal stand he took in the forties. It was real liberal for then, you

know?

CHAFFIN: Yeah, what was your position on Arnall?

SMITH: I voted for him. I thought he was the best choice of what we had to vote

for. Arnall would have made a good governor; he didn't have any of that liberal

[inaudible]. Folks deliberately bit off their nose to spite their face?--they deliberately

bit off their nose to spite their face there, absolutely did. And I kept telling the write-off

people--the write-in people--I said: You all are just going to elect Lester Maddox.

There isn't a way in the world. Can't y'all see it? They are just so blind. Their hate for

Maddox was so strong, it blinded their common sense.

CHAFFIN: Would you have preferred Callaway?

SMITH: To--

CHAFFIN: To Maddox? Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: Yes, for a very, very, very, very, very politically selfish reason.

CHAFFIN: Namely--

SMITH: Because if Callaway had been elected, I'd have been the top man for the

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

ticket in the Democratic party; and I would have been the automatic candidate in 1970 for

governor.

CHAFFIN: Do you regret not running that year?

SMITH: I don't know if that is the way to put it or not, I guess so.

CHAFFIN: Do you think you could have won?

SMITH: Now--looking at it then, I didn't think I could. In hindsight, oh,

yeah--there is no doubt I could have won it. They were looking for a new face. I would

have done then what Carl Sanders had done the year before. I just never dreamed that

the people would not vote for Ernie Vandiver. You know, they didn't vote for Ernie

Vandiver worth a nickel. Ernie got out.

CHAFFIN: That's right.

SMITH: Ernie got out of the race. The night Ernie got out, they tried to get me to

run then, and I wouldn't do it. I'll tell you who tried to get me to run--in Augusta--I'll

think of his name in a minute. But, anyway, there was a group of them looking for

somebody to run. They came to me and asked me to run, and I wouldn't do it

because--the reason I wouldn't play around with it, Tom--you get to playing around with

another race, and your people get to saying: Well, I don't know whether you are going to

stick or not, so we had better go find somewhere to go. And I knew if I started waffling

around, I would wind up with nobody, nowhere. So I just took a firm stand straight

ahead, but in Augusta, they tried to get--still, at that late date, there was a group of them Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library meeting in Waynesboro, the next day, to select somebody to run for governor. And they

said: We don't know who it is going to be, but if you'll agree to it--this was one of the

fellows leading the charge--we'll spend the night here, and I'll take you down there

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

tomorrow morning; we'll stand you up; and we'll run you for governor. Well, I was

afraid I couldn't get the financing; I was afraid I couldn't be elected, too. But the main

reason was that Mills Lane was in Europe; and I couldn't get ahold of him. And I didn't

want to take off on my own after he put as much money in me as he had and start running

for something else. I didn't know how it would affect it, see; and it was just a matter of

things didn't work out right. So I wouldn't go with him.

CHAFFIN: Okay, so you win the race that you did run--

SMITH: I won my race that I did run for--Smythe Gambrell's boy is the one who

contacted me in Augusta. David Gambrell--he tried to get me to do it. He said: You're

the man we ought to have. You are the man who can do it. And they selected Jimmy

Carter--is the man they selected the next day. And he would never have been selected if

I'd have gone with them. They selected him. Jimmy didn't win that time. He won four

years later. I would have won that time. I could've won it.

CHAFFIN: That's right. I had forgotten Carter ran--

SMITH: Yeah, Carter ran in '66; he came in third or fourth--something like that. I

could have won that year.

CHAFFIN: But you do win Lieutenant Governor--

SMITH: Yeah.

CHAFFIN: And Maddox was Governor. Tell me about your relationship with him,

with Maddox? Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: Well, he just went his way; and I went mine. And his way wasn't the

government way. He never did get involved with government too much. Lester

Maddox didn't know anything about government, and he didn't want to learn. He didn't

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

care anything about it. To give you an illustration, his first term as governor, an

appropriations bill comes up--an appropriations bill is passing the House and then passing

the Senate, and we get it in a conference committee.

You know what a conference committee is--the last day of the session--can't get

the bill out because some pork barrel thing he wanted over in Columbus--twenty million

dollars for something--I cannot remember--it had to do with a halfway house or a jail or

something like that. He wanted that, and that got the Senate and the House tied up. The

House wanted to put it through, and the Senate didn't want to put it through because I

thought it was a waste of money. And I said: We ain't going to do it. So we tied

up--about five o'clock that afternoon on the last day of the session now--the

appropriations bill ain't passed yet.

I went down to his office to try to talk him out of that twenty million dollar pork

barrel for Columbus. I asked his secretary--said I'd like to see the Governor. She said:

He's not here. I said: Not here, where in the thunder is he? She said: Well, he's down

in Macon riding his bicycle backwards with the Children's Bicycle Parade. I said:

You've got to be kidding. The last day of the session. The Appropriations Bill tied up

in the conference committee and Lester Maddox, the Governor, is in Macon riding his

bicycle backwards and entertaining a bunch of kids in a bicycle race. Now, that gives

you a true picture of how interested he was in our state government.

So, what I did--I went back upstairs and called my top man out--Senator Plunkett Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library from over at Bowden, Georgia, and said: Senator, kill that twenty million and get that

bill out here and let's go home. And that's what we did. And do you know what:

Lester Maddox has never mentioned that twenty million yet. He didn't even know that

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

wasn't passed.

CHAFFIN: What were his interests?

SMITH: Riding his bicycle backwards and being seen and talk.

CHAFFIN: Do you think he had higher political aspirations?

SMITH: Only in the morning when he waked up and decided he could run for

president and get him a limousine and a driver and government people to protect him.

CHAFFIN: So you rated him as generally ineffectual?

SMITH: And a nice guy--honest, a nice guy--intellectually dishonest, but he

wouldn't steal anything from anybody. But he was a nice guy that didn't have any more

idea about government than the man in the moon. George L and I ran the government

for those four years.

CHAFFIN: So, it sounds like you are saying that rather than what characterized your

relationship with him as governor was not so much friction as he just wasn't a player--

SMITH: He didn't bother about it. Didn't have any friction. It was all right for

you to run it. Let him fly around in that airplane and fly around in the car and ride his

bicycle.

CHAFFIN: Who did most of his--to the extent that he did have a hand in things, who

did most of his bidding?

SMITH: His floor leaders, which was Tom Murphy in the House and Frank Coggin

in the Senate. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library CHAFFIN: Did they tend to just go off with their own agenda or did they get clear

directions?

SMITH: They tried to do what he asked to be done, but they didn't get much help

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

from him. He didn't know how.

CHAFFIN: Do you get the sense that they--

SMITH: They were loyal to him.

CHAFFIN: Did he give them very clear marching orders, though?

SMITH: That I couldn't tell. I don't know how clear the marching orders they gave

him or how much they did to clear up what he told them to do. I wasn't present. I don't

know about that. He promised several things to me before he ever got elected that he

would let the lieutenant governor participate in which he never did.

CHAFFIN: Were there some--I have just a brief note about a confrontation over

Sanders' appointments?

SMITH: Oh, yeah, Sanders made some appointments that he didn't want to confirm

and he came into the Senate--and the big fight over it--as I recall, he won. I'm not sure of

that.

CHAFFIN: Maddox won?

SMITH: I think he did. I'm not sure. I had forgot about that until you mentioned

it to me. I'm not sure, but you are right. That did come up--a confrontation on

appointments of Governor Sanders. He was also going to investigate Sanders. He had

read somewhere about investigating somebody, so he thought it was a good idea. I know

this that we figured the way to put a stop to that. Bobby Rowan was going to--He was a

big Maddox suporter; and Bobby Rowan was going to get a committee up, and we were Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library going to investigate Carl Sanders. So I told him I thought that was a great idea to have a

committee to investigate Carl. So I appointed my own committee of three; and I put two

of my friends on there and Bobby on there. They met and voted on the chairman of the

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

committee--which was not Bobby [end of Tape 2, Side A--interview continues on side

B--transcript continues]

[Tape 2, Side B]

CHAFFIN: You said two friends--

SMITH: Two friends of mine--and told them to meet and told the man that was

elected chairman. I appointed the chairman, and he was the Senator from Albany at that

time--

CHAFFIN: Holloway?

SMITH: Al Holloway. And told Al what we wanted to do and told Al to get a

motion passed--the two of them could vote it, two to one, that nobody could speak to that

committee but the Chairman and to let it be known to the press that there was only one

spokesman of that committee, he was; and I said: Then, when you get that passed, forget

about it; and go on about your business. That's what he did. We quieted him right

down. The same thing happened on the liquor bill. Maddox was fighting the mixed

drink bill so bad that Bragg Blaylock in Coweta County--and I appointed him a member

of the Conference Committee--see that kept him off the floor of the House while they

were working it out in the Conference Committee, and he couldn't work the floor of the

House. He was busy with the Conference Committee.

CHAFFIN: So you are saying this is sort of the same as that in practical politics or Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library legislative politics--that Maddox was sort of a babe in the woods?

SMITH: Totally a babe in the woods, yeah. In other words, no idea of city politics,

legislative politics--state politics and the House and the Senate.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

CHAFFIN: You had a dust-up with Maddox over the support for the '68 national

ticket?

SMITH: Oh, yeah. He was--that was when he ran for governor--I mean, ran for

President. He ran for President. That was a disaster. I knew from where I was sitting.

I was sitting in my car when I heard over the radio he had announced that he was going to

run for President. I had just made a civic club talk out in southeast Atlanta, and I don't

remember where it was. I just shook my head. All that money will be spent for him a

chauffeur and a limousine and Secret Service men to guard him. Incredible, he didn't get

a single vote. Even the Georgia delegation didn't even vote for him.

CHAFFIN: And you supported Humphrey?

SMITH: Yeah, I sure did.

CHAFFIN: I can't remember whether--Was there a question back in the '68 Chicago

convention over the seating?

SMITH: Over the seating of the delegates. Julian Bond was chair of the group in

there, you know. And the convention ultimately seated Julian's bunch and kicked us out.

They didn't kick me out because I had resigned. When I saw what was happening on

Monday--Monday and Monday night--I told them I was going to resign. I had met with

Gene Patterson and--who I got with before that, I got with Bowers--Hardy Bowers of the

Macon Telegraph and got him to help me write a resignation statement the next morning.

I was going to resign from the [inaudible]--I knew they wasn't going to seat us. And I Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library wasn't going to stay there and get kicked out.

He wrote me a resignation. He helped me write a resignation letter--Hardy

Bowers did. And I met with Gene Patterson and Ralph McGill for breakfast. And I told

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

them what I was going to do, showed them the resignation letter. And they both agreed:

That's all you can do is quit and go home.

CHAFFIN: This delegation had been appointed by--

SMITH: Maddox. And he had not--all he had to do was just--that shows you that

he was playing strong arm politics instead of smart politics. And I knew they were going

to unseat us. So when our delegation met on Tuesday morning, I submitted my

resignation. And I was presiding over all of it because Jim Gray from Albany, who was

chairman of the State Democratic Party at that time, he was so busy in the back room

stuff trying to get us back in the convention. He didn't have time to, and I was presiding.

And I announced that I was presiding--uh--resigning and going home.

CHAFFIN: Was that delegation the one that ultimately left committed--pledged to any

candidate?

SMITH: I can't remember that to tell you the truth.

CHAFFIN: You don't recall going up there planning to cast your vote for Maddox--

SMITH: Yes--Nooooo0--we went up there to cast our vote for the nominee--the

convention nominee. We never did plan to go up there for Maddox. It was the nominee

all the way through--even though he appointed us and all like that, the majority of the

committee was going with the nominee.

CHAFFIN: But at that point, there was no nominee for sure--Humphrey--

SMITH: Humphrey, yeah--but we-- Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library CHAFFIN: How did Maddox end up choosing the delegation then?

SMITH: Well, you see at the time the delegation was chosen--I think he had not

determined to run for governor--President at that time. I believe that was ahead of that

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

time. I'm pretty sure it was.

CHAFFIN: You see what I am asking you [inaudible]--

SMITH: I'm pretty sure at that time--but Julian Bond got more than he did. He

didn't get any. Julian got two and a half, something like that.

CHAFFIN: Oh, that's right. His name was put in for vice president.

SMITH: Uh-huh, he got more for that---

CHAFFIN: [Inaudible.]

SMITH: And I told them that I was going to resign and told them why. Maddox

came to see me and said: Oh, you need to stay on--said--we're going to win that thing.

Said--Gray is going to get up there tomorrow night and be allowed to make a speech, and

we gone win that thing, and we going to be seated. And I said: Governor, I want to tell

you what's going to happen tomorrow morning--and at that time the Speaker of the House

was from Texas, a short fellow--

CHAFFIN: Rayburn.

SMITH: I said Sam Rayburn is going to get up there tomorrow night and open up

the convention. And, I said, the first thing he is going to do, he is going to ask for a

motion for the seating of the delegation from Georgia. And I said: They are going to

move that they seat the Bond delegation and dilute the vote from the Georgia group.

And it is going to pass. And, I said, without even a discussion.

He says: Oh, no sirree, that ain't going to happen, we going to win that thing. I Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library said: You're whistling in the graveyard, Governor. That's what's going to happen; and

I'm going home.

CHAFFIN: How did you know that?

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

SMITH: I just know politics. I just knew what was going to happen. I knew--I

put myself in his place.

CHAFFIN: Rayburn's place, yeah.

SMITH: I knew what I'd a done if I had been in Rayburn's place. I'd a rammed it

through. Wasn't any use in putting up with all that junk. Ram it through. Get it over

with--because, you see--what's his name--Humphrey didn't know whether he was going to

be elected or not, Tom; and a man that is going to be elected as a nominee for President,

he's got to show power somewhere. He's got to kill somebody. I don't care who it is.

He's got to kill somebody. And Maddox was the easiest kill on his list. And so if he

goes out and slays the Maddox dragon--because Maddox was unpopular with everybody

anyhow--that would make everybody happy. And if he slew him right off the bat, that

would give him a tremendous amount of strength; and that's exactly what happened.

CHAFFIN: That firms up his support with liberals and--and the right [inaudible].

SMITH: That's exactly right, and it shows that he's not afraid to cut anybody's throat

that gets in the way. It shows strength. And that's exactly what happened. And I was

sitting in the airport listening to it on the radio--watching it on television. And it showed

Maddox marching out of the hall, leading them all. And I got back home and had an

interview with the papers and all. And my name was in big headlines across the paper

and why and all like that. Maddox didn't even make front page. And that's what killed

him. That killed him worse than anything else. One of the reasons that he wanted me to Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library stay up there. He knew if I went home, I would get the front page and he wouldn't.

CHAFFIN: Were you, at one point, going to be an industry hunter for Maddox?

SMITH: That's exactly what we dealt with before he got elected for the

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

legislature--before Christmas, we met at the Dinkler Plaza. And I was going--my sole

thing was to be to head up the Industry and Trade Department and to head up looking for

industry in the state of Georgia. And after he got elected Governor [snapping sound],

knocked it out, wouldn't do it, wouldn't go with it; and then said I lied when I told folks

he said we were going to do it.

CHAFFIN: Now, wait, you were going to do that in what capacity?

SMITH: As lieutenant governor.

CHAFFIN: Oh, okay.

SMITH: They were going to put the Industry and Trade as an adjunct to my office.

CHAFFIN: Move it from the executive--

SMITH: Not rule but by a resolution or something like that, make me the

official--anyway, that's what I was going to be designated to do.

CHAFFIN: This disagreement in Chicago led him to appoint--was it--

SMITH: That happened long before that. See, that happened when I first went in.

He just wiped it all out and said we wasn't going to do it and then said I lied because I

said that's what he'd promised to do. Said I lied that he didn't promise it.

CHAFFIN: It's 5:02. Why don't we wrap it up for today?

SMITH: All right. I reckon we better do that.

CHAFFIN: This is August 19th. We will pick back up on the 20th at four o'clock.

SMITH: All right. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library [Tape & transcript continue from Tape 2, Side B--Next Day--August 20, 1992--Transcript

continues.]

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

[RESUMING INTERVIEW]

CHAFFIN: Starting again on the interview on August 20, 1992, in Justice Smith's law

office.

We haven't really talked about the--

SMITH: Let me tell you an--

CHAFFIN: --gubernatorial campaign.

SMITH: And interesting thing that happened to Governor Maddox--

CHAFFIN: Certainly

SMITH: He got on a big industry hunting trip. And I don't remember what year it

was. Do you remember the year that he called a special session of the legislature, put on

a one percent increase in the sales tax, and I forgot what he was going to do with the sales

tax--he added one percent. George L. and I waked up one morning, and there was

headlines in the paper Governor Maddox called a special session of the legislature to raise

sales tax one percent. I think it was to remove property taxes. I'm not sure. But it was

But neither one of us knew anything about it. So he had set it, he was going to have it,

and he was industry hunting in those days. He would fly all over the country looking at

industry. And I had never been asked to go with him anywhere. But all at once he

decided I was needed real badly and announced a special session. And, of course, I had

said that we weren't about to raise taxes. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library So he squired me all over the United States on three different trips, as I recall,

before the special session. After the special session when George L and I killed it in one

day, I never was asked to go on no industry trips again the whole time that he was there

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

[laughing]. Of course, I'm sure that special session had absolutely nothing to do with

it--but it did. All right.

CHAFFIN: In 1970, you thought about getting into the race?

SMITH: In--no, in 1970, that was lieutenant governor. Maddox and I ran for

lieutenant governor.

CHAFFIN: Didn't you consider running for governor in '70?

SMITH: No, that was--no, I never did consider it because Carl was running.

CHAFFIN: Oh, okay, that's right.

SMITH: If Carl hadn't run, I would have run in 1970. But Carl chose to run, and

that would have been feeding off the same pipeline. But I ran for lieutenant governor

instead. Governor Maddox hadn't even thought about running for lieutenant governor

until somebody--a news man down there one day--just said: Governor, why don't you do

like Governor Johnson did in Mississippi and run for lieutenant governor. And he said:

Well, I hadn't thought about that. And that's what got him the idea of running for

lieutenant governor--was that suggestion. Folks tried to keep him from doing in, but

they didn't do it. As it turned out, it was one of the worst things he ever did, because it

left him totally broke, totally broke, because that plus the governor election after that, you

know, left him absolutely head over hills in debt. But that was his wagon, not mine.

Then I ran for Governor in 1974. Now, that was one--folks looked upon that as

one mistake I made. I did make a mistake in running for governor; but what it did is set Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library me up in such a way that two years later when Charlie Pannell stepped aside and I ran for

the Court of Appeals, nobody wanted to run against me because I had just run a

state-wide campaign two years before. And they knew I had the county--the contacts in

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

the State. And they just didn't want to buck me. So, really, I lost the governorship; but

it elected me to the Court of Appeals.

CHAFFIN: I want to talk about your but before we leave this '74 race, that was a

very interesting race. You had a very crowded field. There was Maddox--

SMITH: Twelve or thirteen--There was Maddox and--

CHAFFIN: Lance.

SMITH: Lance and--

CHAFFIN: Busbee--

SMITH: Busbee--

CHAFFIN: Bobby Rowan--

SMITH: Bobby Rowan and David Gambrell, me--Listen, it was four more of them.

It was twelve us in all. It was a humongous amount of people running. I ran out of

money July 1st. That's what happened. And when you run out of money, you run out of

race. That's all there is to it.

CHAFFIN: Who were your main backers?

SMITH: I didn't have a main backer as such. I had a lot of friends that was funding

money; but that was another mistake I made. I didn't have a main backer. And that's bad

when you don't have--when you don't have somebody like a Mills Lane. You've got to

have somebody to fall back on; and I didn't have. So when I spent up all the voluntary

contributions I got, see, I didn't have anybody to fall back on. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library CHAFFIN: About how much did you spend?

SMITH: About two hundred and fifty thousand, maybe three hundred--and, at that

time, that was about the going rate; so like I had two more months to go. But I just didn't

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

have the money.

CHAFFIN: If you look back on that now, was that a political mistake. Was there

anything that--would you have done it differently now?

SMITH: Now, I wouldn't run--I wouldn't have run.

CHAFFIN: Was there some tipoff that should have alerted you?

SMITH: No, I just didn't get the response that I thought I would get; and on

hindsight I wouldn't run. On front sight, I thought I would get the support, but I didn't.

CHAFFIN: Did you remember where you placed in the primaries?

SMITH: I was fifth.

CHAFFIN: Fifth?

SMITH: I was right behind David Gambrell. David Gambrell was fourth. Lance

was third. Busbee was second; and Maddox was first.

CHAFFIN: Gambrell had just finished serving out the--

SMITH: Senate race--

CHAFFIN: Russell's--

SMITH: That's right.

CHAFFIN: Russell's place in the senate; and--

SMITH: Yeah, he beat me--not very much. But, in politics, if you don't run first,

last is no worst than second. If you don't run first--

CHAFFIN: Gambrell had tried to hold onto that seat-- Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: And lost two years before, yes.

CHAFFIN: What do you think ultimately shaped that race--the results?

SMITH: Carl Sanders getting the money for Busbee to run. Money was--Busbee

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

was as broke as I was July the 1st. Carl Sanders got together and got a bunch of money

raised up--[Interruption.]

CHAFFIN: Wasn't there--I recall that there was another incident in that race.

Maddox, I think, lost a lot of his poor constituency in South Georgia, after the General

Assembly--he was attempting to engineer, discretely engineer some sort of pay hike or

something? Is that part of it; do you remember that?

SMITH: A pay hike for himself--as lieutenant governor, he tried to get him a

retirement set up, where he could--after he left office, he could retire. That's what he

tried to do when he was lieutenant governor. He didn't have time enough to do it; and he

was trying to get a bill through that would give him a special retirement if he was

defeated. That's what that was--Now, I know that was one of the things he did. I know

that.

CHAFFIN: Yeah, the thing I am talking about--was there a lot of press?

SMITH: Oh, it was a lot of press and editorials and finally it beat him. I mean, he

lost it badly. He also pocketed the bill that would have incorporated Fulton County into

one municipality; and wouldn't let it pass--passed the House, and it would have got

through the Senate, if he had let it go through.

CHAFFIN: Okay, you are saying you lost that race, but it set you up for--

SMITH: The Court of Appeals race two years later.

CHAFFIN: The Court of Appeals-- Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: Uh-huh--

CHAFFIN: That was the case where the incumbent, otherwise, if you had not gotten

into the race, probably would have run--

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

SMITH: No, you are jumping ahead?

CHAFFIN: All right.

SMITH: Charlie Pannell was just going to service his time out and retire--

CHAFFIN: Okay--

SMITH: It had nothing to do with the next step is what you--

CHAFFIN: Tell me how you got to the Court of Appeals.

SMITH: Charlie Pannell and I are good friends. See, Charlie and I worked in Carl

Sanders' campaign. You remember I told you Charlie said: You are all we've got. He

is responsible for Carl Sanders appointing me--or helping me get elected Speaker of the

House--or Speaker of the House, either way you want to do it.

He and I had been friends over the years, and he told me that he was going to

retire from the Court of Appeals, did I want the job? I said: I sure do. He said: Well,

you know Busbee ain't going to appoint you.

SMITH: I said, yeah, I know Busbee is not going to appoint me, so he--

CHAFFIN: Why not? Did you have friction with Busbee?

SMITH: Oh, I ran against him. Remember?

CHAFFIN: Yeah, but people run against one another--

SMITH: Yeah, but, you see, I'll tell you the Busbee story about the Supreme Court a

little later.

CHAFFIN: Okay. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: But you see, Charlie didn't mean to let Busbee do it because Charlie

wanted one of his boys appointed to a state court job. And Busbee wouldn't do it. So

Charlie just told me, said, he wouldn't put in state court, he ain't going to get the

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

appointment to the Court of Appeals; do you want the job? I said: Yeah.

So he just kept his mouth shut and retired about three weeks before the qualifying

time; and he retired that afternoon about four o'clock, I announced the next morning at

ten. And nobody wanted to take me on because I had just got through with that race, you

see, where the Speaker of the House and the Lieutenant Governor got into a race

state-wide, and nobody wanted to take me on except Jack Dorsey qualified two minutes

before the deadline , and then I had to run against him.

But that's why George Busbee didn't get an appointment, and that's how I got it.

Then, four years and four months later, I wanted to get on the Court of--the

Supreme Court is where I wanted to go all the time.

CHAFFIN: You once likened the--before we leave that--the Court of Appeals to the

Lieutenant Governor's job in a way.

SMITH: Well, it was just a step to get up to the next place. I had missed the step

over on the other one, lieutenant governor, I missed the Supreme Court--or, the

Governor's office--but I was going to use this for the Supreme Court. So I wanted to go

up there, and I went to see George Busbee. I knew George wasn't going to appoint me,

but I just wanted to clear it. I told him, I said: George, you don't owe me anything. I

know that. But, I said: I have come over here to ask you to appoint me to the Supreme

Court. I said: Now, if a vacancy comes on the Supreme Court, you could put me on

there, and you would still get an appointment on the Court of Appeals. And I'm not Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library asking you to give up something, and if you could do it, I would appreciate it. And he

said, well, he never did think about who he was going to appoint until the election came

up. Well, we both know that ain't so. But, anyway, I knew it wasn't so; and he wasn't

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

pulling my leg. But I got--I confronted him with it so he couldn't come back later and

said: If you had said something to me, blah-blah-blah.

So then I went to Carl Sanders--well, I went to Arthur Bolton first. But, let me

back up, I went to Hi Undercott first--

CHAFFIN: Who was that?

SMITH: Hi Undercott, who was on the Supreme Court. They had just voted Nick

[H.E. Nichols] out as Chief Justice and put the Chief Justice in for every four years, once

every four years.

And I went to talk to Hi about it, and we talked a little bit. And, see, he had to

run that year--Nick did--and he had just been ousted as Chief Justice. He had to run that

year, and if he was elected, Tom, he couldn't serve but eighteen months because he was

eighteen months away from seventy years old. Seventy years old was the ceiling.

So I went--and I said: Is that right? He said: Yes. And I said: Well, that's

interesting. So I went down and talked with Arthur Bolton, the Attorney General. I told

him, I said: He can't serve but eighteen months. I want to be on the Supreme Court.

Busbee is not going to appoint me. I know he is not going to appoint me.

He said: Well, why don't you go see Carl Sanders and be sure. Talk to Carl

about it and be sure he is not going to appoint you. He said: He'll tell Carl. I said:

Well, I want to be sure. But I know he is not going to appoint me.

So I went to see Carl and I told him what I wanted. And he said--well, he would Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library check with him, see what he could do. But in the meantime, my portrait was hung in the

Capitol, on May 12th. So I decided this might be a good time to show off my popularity

to the former Chief Justice. So I personally got on the telephone and invited over four

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

hundred people to that picture hanging, including the Supreme Court; and they came.

Even if you are on the Court of Appeals, they'll come, you know--not that they think they

can influence a judge. They just hope they can. And that circular down there--whatever

you call it--at the state capitol, I had four hundred people or more there. They ere

hanging out of the windows.

And after it was over the Chief Justice--the former Chief Justice said: You

know, George T., you had a bunch of power here today. I said: Yeah. Of course, he

didn't know what I was doing right then. But I was glad he recognized the point, because

that was exactly the point I was trying to make with him.

So about a week after that, I went back to talk to Arthur in the meantime. And I

told Author, I said: Arthur, I want to run for the Supreme Court; and I want you to help

me. And he said: I'll do it. And he said: I'll tell you how I can help you. And I said:

How's that. And he said, well, he's got a patrolman driving him in a patrol car back and

forth to Rome every day. And it is totally illegal. He said that the separation of powers

was being violated because the executive is furnishing money to the judicial purpose,

which is not according to the law. And he said: If you were to call him on it, I would

have to tell him he couldn't ride in it.

I said; Is that right?

He said: Yes.

I said: All right, that's good to know. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library So Carl said he wanted to see me on the Sunday bill; and Carl said: I went to see

Busbee and talked to Busbee about your appointment. And I asked him about it and

said--this is not what he said, but this is what he meant--if you ever hope to be on the

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

Supreme Court, you are going to have to get that some other way other than appointment

by him.

I said: Well, I was sure that would be the answer, Carl. But I wanted that answer

before I tell you: I am going to run against Nick.

He said: Goddam, you are going to do what?

I am going to run against Nick.

He says: Don't you know both of you are my good friends? I am in the middle

of it?

I said: Carl, that's what happens to people whenever they have a life in politics.

You come to a place where you've got to make a choice. I said: Now, you can go with

Nick, who I am going to beat--who will be gone in eighteen months, if he is elected; or,

you can go with me--who will be there six years? Does that sound familiar on a recent

race? Where do you think I got that idea of that twenty-three months. I was the one

who told that guy to run. I said: You are going to kill him, because I remember what

happened back there when I started to raise this eighteen month issue. Pete says: Oh,

he isn't going to vote for that fellow for just eighteen months. I knew he would kill him,

Tom.

I said: You have to make a choice. I said: Tell you what, now. I'll give you a

little time to think about it--

CHAFFIN: Wait, just to be specific for the purposes of interviewing here--you are Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library talking to--

SMITH: Blackburn and Sognier.

I knew Blackburn could defeat Sognier on that twenty-three month thing because

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

Nick got out of the race because he couldn't find anybody who would support him for

eighteen months; and I knew it wouldn't work. I knew he couldn't do it. If Sognier had

been smart, he would have remembered all that because he was on the Court of Appeals

with me when I ran against Nick. He knew the thing I was pushing back then. He didn't

think about that, he forgot all about it.

But, anyway, I said: I am going to beat him. If you want to go with him now for

eighteen months, of course, that's your business. You want a judge that is going to be

there for six years, that's your business. I said; I am going to beat him, Carl.

I said: There are two or three things I am going to beat him on. First of all, he's

gone all about the state dealing with the death penalty. I said: He's got everyone mad at

him about it, and I support the death penalty. But I never have said I could pull the switch.

I said: I am going to eat him up alive in the minority community with that.

CHAFFIN: He was saying specifically what about the death penalty?

SMITH: Oh, he was just ranting and raving in the paper every day about how

important it was. He never did say he could pull the switch, but that was--But

Gambrell--David Gambrell said that in the governor's race, that he would pull the switch

if anybody--and it devastated him.

But, anyway, he was just so outspoken on the death penalty--more than

necessary--just more than necessary in his position. Just more than necessary. It made

it look like he was totally biased. In fact, one person made a motion to disqualify him on Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library the basis of his being biased on that idea.

I said: I am going to beat him from those two standpoints. I said: The next

standpoint is--I can pick up the telephone and call somebody in any county in this state--I

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

just done it two years ago. Nick don't know anybody. He never ran a state-wide race.

He didn't know what it is all about.

Nick had a much larger girth than he has now--I said: You can tell Nick if he

chooses to run against me--See, he could retire with his retirement--I said--if Nick wants

to run against me, you can tell him that before this summer is over with and by the time I

get through dragging him through all the by-ways and hedges in this state, he can stand

straight up and look at his shoes. He won't have to lean over.

He said: Well, hell, let me talk to him.

I said: All right, talk to him.

About three weeks later, he called me--he said: Nick is ready to talk to you, and

he is not going to run. He's got two or three things he wants to talk with you about. He

said: Meet him tomorrow morning--meet him Friday morning at ten o'clock. This was

sometime in the early part of the week.

In the meantime, Arthur Bolton and I were laying our plans as how we were going

to run it. Then, Friday morning came along. I was going to talk with Nick about his

retirement and what he wanted--and I went out and picked up the Atlanta Constitution

and opened the paper to the editorial page. Kiss my foot if Bill Shipp hadn't written one

of the damndest columns on me running against Nick and going to beat him--his last

sentence was: And he is going to beat him, too.

I said: Holy Cow, why he couldn't wait one more week--just a few more days. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library See, this was the morning I was going to see him. And I hadn't told--I found out later

who did that. Arthur Bolton thought it would help me get Nick out of the race. So

Arthur is the one that got Bill to write it. Well, Arthur didn't know about these plans

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/19/1992 & 8/20/1992

going on of mine because I just didn't tell anybody. Because, you know, things like that,

if you don't keep it between the parties, you will never keep the secret. So I didn't eat

much breakfast. I said: Gosh a Moses, this has blown everything; and I went up the

back elevator--the back stairs--I walked up the back stairs and sneaked in his office. I

walked in the office--and I thought--before he ever got a chance to blow off, I says:

Chief--I said--before you start, I had absolutely nothing to do with that editorial this

morning by Bill Shipp. I didn't know he was going to put it in. I knew nothing about it.

And I'm sorry. I just knew nothing about it. I said; You know that I didn't know

anything about it, with what we had to talk about this morning, you don't think I'd have

had that thing in the paper, if I knew anything about it, do you? He said: No, I don't

blame you, but you know I've got to run now.

[End of Tape 2, Side B]

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

GEORGIA GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTATION PROJECT

GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY

SERIES B: PUBLIC FIGURES

NARRATOR: GEORGE T. SMITH

INTERVIEWER: TOM CHAFFIN

DATE: AUGUST 20, 1992

[Tape & transcript continue from Tape 2, Side B--Next Day--August 20, 1992--Transcript

continues from midway on side B.]

[RESUMING INTERVIEW]

CHAFFIN: Starting again on the interview on August 20, 1992, in Justice Smith's law

office. We haven't really talked about the--

SMITH: Let me tell you an--

CHAFFIN: --gubernatorial campaign. But go ahead.

SMITH: Let me tell you an interesting thing that happened to Governor Maddox.

CHAFFIN: Certainly

SMITH: He got on a big industry hunting trip. And I don't remember what year it

was. Do you remember the year he called a special session of the legislature, put on a

Copyrightone percent Special increase Collections in the sales and tax, andArchives, I forgot what Georgia he was State going toUniversity do with the salesLibrary tax. He was going to put a one percent. George L. and I waked up one morning and it

was headlined in the paper Governor Maddox called a special session of the legislature to

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

raise sales tax one percent. I think it was to remove property taxes. I'm not sure. But it

was for some purpose. But neither one of us knew anything about it.

So he had set it; he was going to have it, and he was industry hunting in those

days. He would fly all over the country looking for industry. And I had never been

asked to go with him anywhere. But all at once he decided I was needed real badly after

he announced his special session. And, of course, I had said that we weren't about to

raise taxes.

So he squired me all over the United States on three different trips, as I recall,

before the special session. After the special session, which George L and I killed it in

one day, I never was asked to go on no industry hunting trips again the whole time that he

was there [laughing]. Of course, I'm sure that special session had absolutely nothing to

do with it--but it did. All right.

CHAFFIN: In 1970, you thought about getting into the race?

SMITH: In--no, in 1970, that was lieutenant governor. Maddox and I ran for

lieutenant governor.

CHAFFIN: Okay. Didn't you consider running for governor in '70?

SMITH: No, that was--no, I never did consider it because Carl was running.

CHAFFIN: Oh, okay, that's right.

SMITH: If Carl hadn't run, I would have run in 1970. But Carl chose to run, and

there wasn't any use in both of us running--feeding off the same pipeline. But I ran for Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library lieutenant governor instead. Governor Maddox hadn't even thought about running for

lieutenant governor until somebody--somebody named--a news man down there one day

just said: Governor, why don't you do like Governor Johnson did in Mississippi and run

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

for lieutenant governor. And he said: Well, I hadn't thought about that. And that's

what got him the idea of running for lieutenant governor--was that suggestion. Folks

tried to keep him from doing it, but they didn't do it. As it turned out, it was one of the

worst things he ever did, because it left him totally broke, totally broke, because that plus

the governor election after that, you know, left him absolutely head over hills in debt.

But that was his wagon, not mine.

Then I ran for governor in 1974. Now, that was one--folks looked upon that as

one mistake I made. I did make a mistake in running for governor; but what it did is set

me up in such a way that two years later when Charlie Pannell stepped aside, and I ran for

the Court of Appeals, nobody wanted to run against me because I had just run a

state-wide campaign two years before. And they knew I had the county--the contacts in

the State. And they just didn't want to buck me. So, really, I lost the governorship; but

it elected me to the Court of Appeals.

CHAFFIN: I want to talk about your appellate court career; but before we leave this

'74 race, that was a very interesting race. You had a very crowded field. There was

Maddox--

SMITH: Twelve or thirteen--There was Maddox and--

CHAFFIN: Lance.

SMITH: Lance and--

CHAFFIN: Busbee-- Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: Busbee--

CHAFFIN: Bobby Rowan--

SMITH: Bobby Rowan and David Gambrell, me--Listen, it was four more of them.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

It was twelve us in all. It was a humongous amount of people running. I ran out of

money July 1st. That's what happened. And when you run out of money, you run out of

race. That's all there is to it.

CHAFFIN: Who were your main backers?

SMITH: I didn't have a main backer as such. I had a lot of friends that was funding

money; but that was another mistake I made. I didn't have a main backer. And that's bad

when you don't have--when you don't have somebody to fall back on like a Mills Lane.

You've got to have somebody to fall back on; and I didn't have. So when I spent up all

the voluntary contributions I got, see, I had nobody to fall back on.

CHAFFIN: About how much did you spend?

SMITH: About two hundred and fifty thousand, maybe three hundred; and, at that

time, that was about the going rate; I had two more months to go. But I just didn't have

the money.

CHAFFIN: If you look back on that now, was that a political mistake. Was there

anything that--would you have done it differently now?

SMITH: Now, I wouldn't run--I wouldn't have run.

CHAFFIN: Was there some tipoff that should have alerted you?

SMITH: No, no; I just didn't get the response that I thought I would get; and on

hindsight I wouldn't run. On front sight, I thought I would get the support, but I didn't.

CHAFFIN: Do you remember where you placed in the primaries? Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: I was fifth.

CHAFFIN: Fifth?

SMITH: I was right behind David Gambrell. David Gambrell was fourth. Lance

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

was third. Busbee was second; and Maddox was first.

CHAFFIN: Gambrell had just finished serving out the--

SMITH: the Senate--

CHAFFIN: Russell's--

SMITH: That's right.

CHAFFIN: Russell's term in the senate; and [inaudible]--

SMITH: Yeah, he beat me--not very much--but it don't make a difference. In

politics, if you don't run first, last is no worst than second. If you don't run first--

CHAFFIN: Gambrell had tried to hold onto that seat--

SMITH: And lost two years before, yes.

CHAFFIN: Right. What do you think ultimately shaped that race--the results? How

did Busbee [inaudible]--

SMITH: Carl Sanders getting the money for Busbee to run. Money was--Busbee

was as broke as I was July the 1st. Carl Sanders got together and got him a bunch of

money raised up--[Interruption.]

CHAFFIN: Wasn't there--I recall that there was another incident, though, in that race.

Maddox, I think, lost a lot of his core constituency in South Georgia, after the General

Assembly where he was attempting to engineer, sort of discretely engineer some sort of

pay hike or something? Is that part of it; do you remember that?

SMITH: A pay hike for himself? As lieutenant governor, he tried to get him a Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library retirement set up, where he could--after he left office, he could retire. That's what he

tried to do when he was lieutenant governor. He didn't have time enough to do it; and he

was trying to get a bill through that would give him a special retirement if he was

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

defeated. That's what that was. Now, I know that was one of the things he did. I know

that.

CHAFFIN: Was there a lot of press?

SMITH: Oh, it was a lot of press and editorials and finally it beat him. I mean, he

lost it badly. He also pocketed the bill that would have incorporated Fulton County into

one municipality; and never would let it pass--passed the House, and it would have got

through the Senate, if he had let it go through.

CHAFFIN: Okay, you are saying you lost that race, but it set you up for--

SMITH: The Court of Appeals race two years later.

CHAFFIN: The Court of Appeals--

SMITH: Uh-huh--[indicating affirmative].

CHAFFIN: That was the case where the incumbent, otherwise, if you had not gotten

into the race, probably would have run--

SMITH: No, you are jumping ahead.

CHAFFIN: All right.

SMITH: Charlie Pannell was going to just serve his time out and retire.

CHAFFIN: Okay--

SMITH: It had nothing to do with the next step is what you--

CHAFFIN: Tell me how you got to the Court of Appeals.

SMITH: Charlie Pannell and I are good friends. See, Charlie and I worked in Carl Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library Sanders' campaign. You remember I told you Charlie said: 'You are all we've got'? He

is responsible for Carl Sanders appointing me--or helping me get elected Speaker of the

House--or [inaudible] Speaker of the House, whichever way you want to put it.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

He and I had been friends over the years, and he told me that he was going to

retire from the Court of Appeals, did I want the job? I said: I sure do. He said: Well,

you know Busbee ain't going to appoint you.

SMITH: I said, yeah, I know Busbee is not going to appoint me. So he--

CHAFFIN: Why not? Did you have friction with Busbee?

SMITH: Oh, I ran against him. Remember?

CHAFFIN: Yeah, but people run against one another--

SMITH: Yeah, but, you see, I'll tell you the Busbee story about the Supreme Court a

little later.

CHAFFIN: Okay.

SMITH: But you see, Charlie didn't mean to let Busbee do it because Charlie

wanted one of his boys appointed to a state court job. And Busbee wouldn't do it. So

Charlie just told me, he said: He wouldn't put my boy in the state court, he ain't going to

get the appointment to the Court of Appeals; do you want the job? I said: Yeah.

So he just kept his mouth shut and retired about three weeks before the qualifying

time; and he retired that afternoon about four o'clock, I announced the next morning at

ten. And nobody wanted to take me on because I had just got through with that race, you

see. And I had been the Speaker of the House and the Lieutenant Governor--got into a

race state-wide, and nobody wanted to take me on except Jack Dorsey qualified two

minutes before the deadline, and then I had to run against him. But that's why George Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library Busbee didn't get an appointment, and that's how I got it.

Then, four years and four months later, I wanted to get on the Court of--the

Supreme Court is where I wanted to go all the time.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

CHAFFIN: You once likened the--before we leave that--the Court of Appeals to the

Lieutenant Governor's job in a way.

SMITH: Well, it was just a step to get up to the next place. I had missed the step

over on the other one, lieutenant governor, I missed the Supreme Court--or, the

Governor's office--but I was going to use this for the Supreme Court. So I wanted to go

up there, and I went to see George Busbee. I knew George wasn't going to appoint me,

but I just wanted to clear it. I told him, I said: George, you don't owe me anything. I

know that. But, I said: I have come over here to ask you to appoint me to the Supreme

Court. I said: Now, if a vacancy comes on the Supreme Court, you could put me on

there, and you would still get an appointment on the Court of Appeals. And I'm not

asking you to give up something, and if you could do it, I would appreciate it. And he

said, well, he never did think about who he was going to appoint until the election came

up. Well, we both know that ain't so. But, anyway, I knew it wasn't so; and he was

pulling my leg. But I got--I confronted him with it so he couldn't come back later and

said: If you had said something to me, blah-blah-blah.

So then I went to Carl Sanders--well, I went to Arthur Bolton first. But, let me

back up, I went to Hi Undercott first.

CHAFFIN: Who was that?

SMITH: Hi Undercott, who was on the Supreme Court. They had just voted Nick

[H.E. Nichols] out as Chief Justice and they put the Chief Justice in for every four years, Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library once every four years.

And I went to talk to Hi about it, and we talked a little bit. And, see, he had to

run that year--Nick did--and he had just been ousted as Chief Justice. He had to run that

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

year, and if he was elected, Tom, he couldn't serve but eighteen months because he was

eighteen months away from seventy years old. Seventy years old was the ceiling.

So I went--and I said: Is that right? He said: Yes. And I said: Well, that's

interesting. So I went down and talked with Arthur Bolton.

CHAFFIN: The attorney general?

SMITH: The Attorney General. I told him, I said: He can't serve but eighteen

months. I want to be on the Supreme Court. Busbee is not going to appoint me. I

know he is not going to appoint me.

He said: Well, why don't you go see Carl Sanders and be sure. Talk to Carl

about it and be sure he is not going to appoint you. He said: He'll tell Carl. I said:

Well, I want to be sure. But I know he is not going to appoint me.

So I went to see Carl and I told him what I wanted. And he said--well, he would

check with him, see what he could do. So in the meantime, my portrait was hung in the

Capitol, on May 12th. So I decided this might be a good time to show off my popularity

to the former Chief Justice. So I personally got on the telephone and invited over four

hundred people to that picture hanging, including the Supreme Court; and they came.

Even if you are on the Court of Appeals, they'll come, you know--every one that's going

to have a case up there--not that they think they can influence a judge. They just hope

they can. And that circular thing down there--whatever you call it--at the state capitol, I

had four hundred people or more there. They were hanging out of the windows. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library And after it was over the Chief Justice--the former Chief Justice said: You

know, George T., you had a bunch of power here today. I said: Yeah. Of course, he

didn't know what I was doing right then. But I was glad he recognized the point, because

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

that was exactly the point I was trying to make with him.

So about a week after that, I went back to talk to Arthur in the meantime. And I

told Arthur, I said: Arthur, I want to run for the Supreme Court; and I want you to help

me. And he said: I'll do it. And he said: I'll tell you how I can help you. And I said:

How's that? And he said: Well, he's got a patrolman driving him in a patrol car back

and forth to Rome every day. And it is totally illegal. He said that the separation of

powers was being violated because the executive is furnishing money to the judicial

purpose, which is not according to the law. And he said: If you were to call him on it, I

would have to tell him he couldn't ride in it.

I said: Is that right?

He said: Yes.

I said: All right, that's good to know.

So Carl said he wanted to see me on the [inaudible]; and Carl said: I went to see

Busbee and talked to Busbee about your appointment. And I asked him about it and he

said--this is not what he said, but this is what he meant--if you ever hope to be on the

Supreme Court, you are going to have to get that some other way other than appointment

by him.

I said: Well, I was sure that would be the answer, Carl. But I wanted that

answer before I tell you: I am going to run against Nick.

He said: Goddam, you are going to do what? Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library I am going to run against Nick.

He says: Don't you know both of you are my good friends? I am in the middle

of it.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

I said: Carl, that's what happens to people whenever they have a life in

politics, as you are. You come to a place where you've got to make a choice. I said:

Now, you can go with Nick, who I am going to beat--who will be gone in eighteen

months, if he is elected; or, you can go with me--who will be there six years? Does that

sound familiar on a recent race? Where do you think I got that idea of that twenty-three

months? I was the one who told this guy to run. I said: You can kill him, because I

remember what happened back there when I started to raise this eighteen month issue.

Pete says: Oh, he isn't going to vote for that fellow for just eighteen months. I knew it

would kill him, Tom. I had been through that before.

I said: You have to make a choice. I said: Tell you what, now. I'll give you a

little time to think about it--

CHAFFIN: Wait, just to be specific for the purposes of interviewing here--you are

comparing it to--

SMITH: Blackburn and Sognier.

I knew Blackburn could defeat Sognier on that twenty-three month thing because

Nick got out of the race because he couldn't find anybody who would support him for

eighteen months; and I knew it wouldn't work. I knew he couldn't do it. If Sognier had

been smart, he would have remembered all that because he was on the Court of Appeals

with me when I ran against Nick. He knew the thing I was pushing back then. He didn't

think about that, he forgot all about it. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library But, anyway, I said: I am going to beat him. If you want to go with him now for

eighteen months, of course, that's your business. You want a judge that is going to be

there for six years, that's your business. I said; I am going to beat him, Carl.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

I said: There are two or three things I am going to beat him on. First of all, he's

gone all about the state dealing with the death penalty. I said: He's got everybody mad

at him about it, and I support the death penalty. But I never have said I could pull the

switch. I said: I am going to eat him up alive in the minority community with that.

CHAFFIN: He was saying specifically what about the death penalty?

SMITH: Oh, he was just ranting and raving in the paper every day about how

important it was. He never did say he could pull the switch, but that was--the

Gambrell--David Gambrell said that in the governor's race, that he would pull the switch

if anybody--and it devastated him.

But, anyway, he was just so outspoken on the death penalty--more than

necessary--just more than necessary in his position. Just more than necessary. It made

it look like he was totally biased. In fact, one person made a motion to disqualify him on

the basis of his being biased on that idea.

I said: I am going to beat him from those two standpoints. I said: The next

standpoint is--I can pick up the telephone and call somebody in any county in this state.

I had just done it two years ago. Nick don't know anybody. He never ran a state-wide

race. He didn't know what it is all about.

Nick had a much larger girth than he has now--I said: You can tell Nick if he

chooses to run against me--See, he could retire with his retirement--[inaudible]. I said if

Nick wants to run against me, you can tell him that before this summer is over with, and Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library by the time I get through dragging him through all the by-ways and hedges in this state,

he can stand straight up and look at his shoes. He won't have to lean over.

He said: Well, hell, let me talk to him.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

I said: All right, talk to him.

About three weeks later, he called me. He said: Nick is ready to talk to you, and

he is not going to run. He's got two or three things he wants to talk with you about. He

said: Meet him tomorrow morning--meet him Friday morning at ten o'clock. This was

sometime in the early part of the week.

In the meantime, Arthur Bolton and I were laying our plans as how we were going

to run it. Then, Friday morning came along. I was going to talk to Nick about his

retirement and what he wanted, and I went out and picked up the Atlanta Constitution and

opened the paper to the editorial page. Kiss my foot if Bill Shipp hadn't written one of

the damndest columns on me running against Nick and going to beat him. His last

sentence was: And he is going to beat him, too.

I said: Holy Cow, why he couldn't wait one more week--just a few more days.

See, this was the morning I was going to see him. And I hadn't told--I found out later

who did that. Arthur Bolton thought it would help me get Nick out of the race. So

Arthur is the one that got Bill to write it. Well, Arthur didn't know about these plans

going on of mine because I just didn't tell anybody. Because, you know, things like that,

you just can't keep a secret; if you don't keep it between the parties, you will never keep

the secret. So I didn't eat much breakfast. I said: Gosh a Moses, this has blown

everything; and I went down there; and I went up the back elevator--the back stairs--I

walked up the back stairs and sneaked into his office. I walked in the office--and I Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library thought--before he ever got a chance to blow off, I'd tell him, I said: Chief--I

said--before you start, I had absolutely nothing to do with that editorial this morning by

Bill Shipp. I didn't know he was going to put it in there. I knew nothing about it. And

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

I'm sorry. I just knew nothing about it. I said; You know that I didn't know anything

about it, because with what you and I had to talk about this morning, you don't think I'd

have had that thing in the paper, if I knew anything about it, do you? He said: No, I

don't blame you, but you know I've got to run now.

[End of Tape 2, Side B]

[Continues on Tape 3, Side A]

[Transcript Continues below from next tape]

[Tape 3, Side A]

CHAFFIN: You get up there to Nichols' chambers.

SMITH: So I went up to his chambers to talk to him and when I walked in the door,

and before he ever got a chance to say anything, I said--I said: 'Chief, I want you to

know I didn't have a thing in the world to do with that editorial in the paper this morning.

I had nothing to do with it. I didn't know it was going to be written. And it was

written without my knowledge or my consent. I said: You don't think I'd agree to that

thing being written if I knew, do you?

He said: No, I'm not blaming you with it. But he said: You know I've got to run

now. I said: You are absolutely right you've got to run. I says--he dared you, and

you've got to run. Ain't nothing else you can do. That's the only way you can do. He Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library says: I've got to save face, George T. I said: That's right. You've got to save face.

You've got to run. And we talked on a little bit more.

And I said: Now, Chief, I'm fixing to go to Charleston, South Carolina to a

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

judicial seminar. And I'll be back next Wednesday--next Thursday. I said: I'm going

to leave this afternoon. Well, that was a little bit of a tale. I was going to leave the next

day, but I said that afternoon for a purpose. I said: I'm leaving this afternoon. I'm

going home. I'm not going to get on the telephone. I'm not going to talk to anybody.

I'm not going to talk to the press. I'm not going to answer the telephone. And let's just

let this thing simmer on the back cooker til I get back. And he thought on it, and he said:

All right, that's a good idea. He said: Let's just let that simmer on the back cooker

until you get back. I said: Good, thank you. I shook hands with him. And that gave

me hope for him to say that.

So I went down and called Carl and told him the catastrophe; and he was just

devastated, of course. And I went on to Charleston. But before I went to Charleston, I

spent the rest of Friday afternoon and Friday night lining up the people in the state,

particularly the black community. I got them all, and I talked to all the leaders in the

black community before I left--didn't talk to any news media. And none of it came out.

It never did leak, not a lick. And Wednesday afternoon I got a call, and it was Carl

Sanders. Carl said Nick had just called him and told him he had decided not to run. So

I came back and went to see him and thanked him. And what he wanted me to do--he

had one law clerk he wanted to know if I could keep because he had been there, hadn't

been able to place him--I told him, yeah, I'd keep his law clerk 'til he could find a place.

And then his son-in-law, you know, was an assistant court reporter over there. And he Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library wanted to know if I would keep him because I had had a couple of run-ins with his

son-in-law; he was an arrogant, overbearing little sucker--

CHAFFIN: [Inaudible].

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

SMITH: Yeah, he had just got on the court and with his father-in-law the Chief

Justice, you know, he was one of those kind of fellows that rode high and thought he had

everything on his side--a court reporter. So I told the former Chief Justice that I would

not try to get his son-in-law fired from the court and that I would take care of his law

clerk until he could get a job. And so he didn't run, and nobody else announced against

me until Jack Dorsey--Jack Dorsey announced. He said if nobody else would run against

me, he was going to run against me. So that was the second time I had opposition for the

Court of Appeals, and I won--I mean, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. And

I won that one, too. So I am the only man in the history of the state that ever arrived in

the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court the first time by running for it, with

opposition, and getting elected, both of them. Now, Tom Marshall was elected to the

Court of Appeals and then appointed to the Supreme Court, but I was elected to both of

them.

I am also the only man in the state of Georgia that has ever been elected to all

three branches of the government on a state-wide basis. Nobody else has ever done that.

There have been three others that held state-wide offices, but they didn't get elected to

them. They were appointed to one of them. That was back in the last century whenever

the Supreme Court was elected by the legislature. They were elected by the legislature

on the Supreme Court and not elected by the people state-wide.

So that's how I got on the Supreme Court. I came on the Supreme Court and Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library spent like eleven days--been eleven years.

CHAFFIN: I wanted to go back and talk again about some of the things we discussed

two years ago when we got together--your youth in south Georgia and [inaudible] your

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

legal career.

SMITH: Well, I was born and raised on a little hundred and twenty-five acre sand

hill farm down in southwest Gorgia in Mitchell County.

CHAFFIN: You were born in Camilla?

SMITH: Well, yeah, that was where we got our mail from--as we were wont to say,

'that's where we bought our fertilizer from,' Camilla, but I lived seven miles out in the

country. But that was my RFD address, was Camilla. And my father struggled to make

a living for us, much less anything else. He finally lost everything he had in 1935 as a

result of the Depression, and we moved--I quit school when I was twelve years old and

plowed a mule until I was eighteen--started back in high school when I was eighteen

years old--started the eighth grade when I was eighteen years old. I finished high school

in Hopeful then went to Middle Georgia College for one quarter, then left there and went

to Abraham Baldwin. I finished at Abraham Baldwin, left Abraham Baldwin and went

to the Navy and got in the service--

CHAFFIN: You finished your degree in--

SMITH: They called it--I think they called it a 'normal diploma' in animal

husbandry. I had a hundred and twenty-five hours credit from both places--both of them

combined. Got out of there the 6th of June, 1940, and then joined the Navy on the 26th

of August, 1940. I tried to get in the Air Corps, but I had what they called 'excitable

blood pressure.' And I couldn't make the Air Corps, so I went in the Navy. And that is Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library an interesting thing about--I've got to tell you about this, how I got in the Navy. I knew

the draft was coming on, and on the 15th day of October, the day that I was going to be

twenty-two years old, I knew that the Navy was going to--I mean, I knew that was the day

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

the draft was going to start, and I knew I was headed for it. And I wanted to select the

place I went. I didn't want to sleep on the ground in the rain and wet and snow.

I wanted my bed with me and a dry floor under me. So I wanted to get in the

Navy. So I was out behind the barn one day, and a piece of paper blew by me. I just

reached out and grabbed it while I was sitting there. And it was a little ole thing about

three inches long. It said: Join the naval reserve and go on a six weeks training cruise

every summer--then, you are off for the rest of the year. And you will be exempt from the

draft. So I am pulling a Clinton and all the other folks, so I grabbed that and I said--that's

what I'm going to do. I'm going to join the Navy, the reserves, and go on a six weeks'

cruise every year, then, the rest of the time, I can do something else. I went to Albany

and told the man--showed it--showed him what I wanted--showed that little paper.

And he said: All right. Sit down and fill this out.

I filled out the whole questionnaire.

Then he said: Now, while I'm looking over your questionnaire and all--No, the

first thing he did, he said: Let me see if you're color blind--before we did anything else.

I wasn't color blind. He said: Well, now, fill this out. And I filled all that out. Then,

he said: Now, answer these questions while I'm looking over this. While I was

answering questions, he rated it: He said--it's two things--first of all: You have made

the highest grade of anybody that has ever come to this--

CHAFFIN: Recruiting office? Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: --recruiting office since I've been here. He says: Number two, you've

got two years' college. You don't want to get in this thing. You want to get in the V-7.

And I said: Well, what is the V-7. I'd never heard of it.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

He said: You go to Northwestern University for ninety days, and if you pass all

the courses, he said--first of all, you take a thirty day cruise on a big ship of some

kind--he said, probably the USS Quincy, which was a heavy cruiser. And he said, if you

pass that, if you are recommended from that, you go to either Prairie State, which is a ship

tied up to a pier in New York City or you go to Northwestern University on the

downtown campus, Albert Hall, and for ninety days; and if you pass that, you are

commissioned an ensign in the US Navy. I said: You've got to be kidding. He says:

No. And I says: Thunder, that's what I want. He says: All right. That's what you've

got.

That's how I wound up being commissioned in the Navy. I had no more idea

what it was when I went up there--I didn't know anything about it. So he sent me up to

Macon two or three days later. And I went up there and passed the physical and was

sworn in and went on the USS Quincy in November for a year--for a month--in 1940, got

out and attended the Northwestern University midshipman's school in--started March 16,

1941, finished June 16, '41, commissioned ensign, reported to the USS Antilles in

Baltimore and sometime in July, because I had a fifteen day leave, so sometime around

the first of July. It wound up that I was discharged--

CHAFFIN: That was 1941.

SMITH: That was before the war had started. So I got a little taste of the old Navy

before it was ruined by World War Two, they thought. I was in there with all that pomp Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library and ceremony and class distinction. We reserves were in a class by ourselves; they saw

to that, the regulars did. And it was interesting, though: dress on the ship every

Saturday morning, line up for dress inspection--the Captain with your sword and your hat

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

and dress uniform and all like that. It was a mess.

CHAFFIN: It was more of an elitist institution.

SMITH: It was an elitist outfit and don't you forget it--an elitist outfit. It the

[inaudible], I couldn't imagine anything like it. Gee, you talk about pomp and ceremony

and elitism and you getting your right place in the line. That was there--you were seen

only because they couldn't help it; and you didn't speak because they didn't want you to.

Tough.

CHAFFIN: That pomp, though, was waning by the time you got to the Soviet Union?

SMITH: Huh, I never did get it. I wasn't there long enough to get it. But anybody

that had it, it was gone by the time they got to the Soviet Union. I meant to bring my

medal. It was gone by the time they got to the Soviet Union, man. Let me tell you

what--I got on that thing--that was a submarine [?] that I got on--the USS Antilles. We

made a trip down to Bermuda, came back, and we--I was home on leave on December 7th

when they bombed Pearl Harbor. I had to get on a train and go back. It took me, oh,

something like 36 hours to get from Albany, Georgia to Norfolk, Virginia, because they

stopped at every bridge to see if it was being bombed or anything. And we were heading

for the Pacific--a submarine tender [?] heading for the Pacific. And I got down to [?]

Panama, that's the canal zone--

CHAFFIN: The north side?

SMITH: That's right, the north side. And while I was there, I got orders ordering Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library me back to Little Creek, Virginia, to take armed guard training. Well, I didn't know what

armed guard was, but they sent me back there; and I went through a two weeks course. I

was assigned nine sailors. And those nine sailors and I went all the way through this

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

program, two weeks, by ourselves, in which we were training to be the armed guard crew.

I was the officer, a Naval officer, in charge of an armed guard crew on a Merchant

Marine ship. And we'd man the guns. Two weeks, got through, and then we were

assigned to the SS--that's steamship--Antigua--no, SS Antigua--Yaka--SS Yaka, in

Boston Harbor.

CHAFFIN: Y-a--[spelling]

SMITH: Y-a-k-a [spelling].

And that fit Russia, didn't it, Yaka. And we got there--got there on a Saturday

afternoon. Well, I tell you what, friend. I quickly got a snout full of the unions. We

got there in the afternoon, went aboard the ship to get in our quarters. Every bed in our

quarters--let me back up--I don't want to say every bunk was occupied. But there was

somebody in every one of the rooms of our quarters, some longshoreman stretched out in

our bunk, drunk and asleep. I could not believe it. I could not believe it.

Unbelievable. Well, we finally rooted them all out and got them out, where they'd let us

go on and move our stuff in. And about the time we got our stuff half in, a big old truck

pulled up alongside the dock and unloaded four .50 caliber machine guns and a bunch of

ammunition. And before they unloaded it, they came aboard to see the Captain. And

the Captain treated me cold as a fish because they didn't like the idea of a Naval officer

coming aboard, because, technically speaking, the Naval officer is in charge of the ship,

and he didn't like it. So we came aboard and the people that had brought those guns and Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library ammunition came up and told the Captain: We got it out here. Where are the

longshoremen who are supposed to unload this stuff? And he said: They are all drunk

and stretched out. So they never could get any longshoremen--now, this was the Navy

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

unloading it out there, and they never could get any longshoremen or anybody to go out

there and unload that ammunition and those machine guns and put them aboard the ship.

So they just dumped it all on the dock. Well, there I was out there with machine guns

and ammunition all dumped on the dock. I had just gotten on the ship, hadn't even

gotten through unpacking. So what were you going to do? So I did the only thing we

could do. We went out there in our dress clothes and lugged all that stuff aboard ship, by

hand, and stowed it aboard the ship. And when we did that, this will be interesting--the

longshoremen put in double time and a half for the time we spent putting the guns on the

ship because we had taken their work away from them. And they got it! They got it.

So we got that, and then they came and mounted the guns for us. And we fixed them all

up. And we were gone almost five months, over to Russia. I went through a hundred and

fifty-six air raids in Merminsk [?]. The ship was sunk. We were bombed five times, and

they finally sunk us. We lost one ship going in and seven coming out; and I did not

know until I read a book recently, which is absolutely documented in writing--I thought

we lost our seven ships to a wolfpack. We lost our seven ships--we ran into our own

minefield. The dadgum gooks didn't know where we were--ran us into our own

minefields just off of Iceland, sunk seven ships. I was number two in the line; we had

two lines--one, two, three. I was number two. It sunk number one and number three

and number five and number seven--now, how in the world? What we figured happened

is whenever that first ship blew up, the waves and all from it, washed the mines out; and Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library by the time my ship got through, they had come back in; and the next ship plowed into

them. And it blew it out; and the next ship plowed into them, and it blew it out; and the

next ship plowed into them. We felt something bumping the side of our ship very

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

hard--boomp, boomp, boomp, boomp, boomp--about six or eight times. And it had to be

a mine--it just didn't contact for some reason or another.

So we got her into--after that was over with, on the way back--On the way over

there, though--here's another thing that happened. We were bombed one afternoon right

after we got there, and it blew up--broke a hundred and forty-something couplings in the

ship. It had every water pipe and steampipe in the ship blown up because the bombs

were just going right down each side. These dive bombers--dived at us through a think

layer of clouds. They could see us. We couldn't see them--couldn't see anything. And,

then, we were bombed another time by anti-personnel bombs; and it blew over a hundred

holes in the side of the ship, set the bedding on fire in the forepart of the ship. I looked

down between my legs and there was a hunk of shrapnel as big as my fist lying right

between my legs--so hot, you couldn't touch it. Then, they finally sunk us; they put a

thousand pound bomb right through the fiddlet [?], they call it; that's right in front of the

boilers--went all the way out and blew a hole in the bottom of the ship; and it sunk there

in the river--they pulled us up on some mud flats, and the ship sunk there in the river.

And I saw the deck representative of the labor union sitting down and figuring out

how much overtime they were going to get for sawing an anchor chain in two when we

didn't know whether we were going to sink before we could get it up to the mud flats or

not. One night--we had shot all our ammunition up--they didn't give us but 200 hundred

rounds of ammunition for a fifty caliber gun; it would last you about a minute and a half, Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library four fifty caliber--non-armor-piercing. It's just like throwing potatoes at the German

ships. And a Russian came alongside one night at eight o'clock. And that was coffee

time for the union. And threw lines on board the ship to unload some ammunition for

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

us. And eight o'clock sounded, and all the deck crew just dropped the lines and went and

got their coffee. We all had to grab them. So the ship's officers and my crew unloaded

all the ammunition again. They got two and half time, by the way, for the time we spent

unloading. They put time in and got it, collected for it. They weren't doing anything.

And that's what happened then, and then whenever--it was right after we first got there.

The Germans would come at seven, eleven, and seven--seven in the morning, eleven at

night--at noon--and seven in the afternoon. They would just get your breakfasts and

disrupt your lunches and all. The gunner--the bos'n that I had in charge of the gun crew,

one afternoon about three o'clock came in and said: Mr. Smith, said we haven't had

anything to eat today, and said we haven't had a meal, a noonday meal this week. And I

said: What do you mean you haven't had a noonday meal this week? See, the Germans

would come in about eleven o'clock and sporadically bomb you for about two or three

hours; and you had to stay on the guns all the time; and you couldn't go eat. That was the

last thing you were thinking about doing. I said: What's the problem? He said well the

cook says the union rules are that he closes the galley at one o'clock and he closed it and

he ain't going to open it for anybody to eat until six that night.

So I went up to see the Captain. I was standing down on the well deck, and the

Captain was on the bridge. I said: Captain, you heard what that man said? He said:

Yes, I did. I said: Can't you make them open up that galley? He said: If I made them

open up that galley, Mr. Smith, they would blackball me, and I could never take another Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library ship out. The union would blackball me, and I could never take another ship out. I

says: You've got to be kidding? He says: No, I can't. No, I can't do it.

To go back a little bit, the way I got the Captain on my side-- I went to see the old

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

Captain. He was about sixty or seventy, you know, an old liquor-drinking

Norwegian--or Swede--I don't remember which. And I said: Captain, I want to come in

here and get something straight. And I had my little ole regulations--I said this

regulation gives me--technically, I'm in charge of the ship. But, I said, I want to let you

know this--I ain't going to take your ship away from you. I don't know a cotton-pickin

thing about running a ship. I couldn't dock one if I tried to. This is your ship, you run it.

Just whenever we are fighting, I'll handle the gun. You run the ship. And from that

time on, he was just as friendly as a cat.

They were all Americans--

CHAFFIN: Was this a US flag merchant machine ship with a Scandivanian mariner--

SMITH: No, no, everybody on there was American. And so he was--from there

on, we didn't have any problems. But, anyway, I told him--I says--with your permission,

you know that book we were talking about? He said: Yes. I said: With your

permission, I have just taken over the ship. I'm the Captain of this ship now, until I get

that galley open. He says: You've got it. More power to you.

I started back there, Tom, and I got halfway back. And I realized that I had a .45

caliber strapped on. I kept it on all the time in a war zone. So I went back to--I knew

I'm hotheaded as hell. I went back to my bunk and took it off and threw it up on the

bunk. And I said: I just can't go back there with this on, because I'm sure he is going to

smart-mouth me. And I went back there, and he was standing there with his foot on the Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library middle rail, leaning over on it. I called him by name; I don't remember what his name

was. I said: How about opening up the galley and let my boys get in there and get

something to eat. I said: They've been on the guns since eleven o'clock this morning; it

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

is three o'clock this afternoon? Without even looking, he says: I don't run no damn a la

carte galley--

CHAFFIN: Any what?

SMITH: A la carte galley around here--said if they ain't there between eleven and

one, they don't get nothing.

Well, it flew all over me. I realize how wise it was--I said: I tell you what I am

going to do. I pulled my coat back, and I said: You know, I usuallly carry a .45 all the

time. And he said: Yeah. I said: You don't see it now, do you? He said: No, I

don't. I said: You know why you don't see it? He says: No, why? I said: I started

back here with it on, and I figured I'd get a smartass answer just like that, and I figured I'd

kill you because I'm in a war zone; and I don't think we will ever get back; and I don't

care. And I said: In a war zone, all you had to do is tell me you weren't going to do

something, friend, when I am in charge of this ship, I can blow your head off, throw you

over the side and just report you for insubordination at the time of an attack by the

enemy--you won't be nothing but a mark on a piece of paper. I said: I'm going back and

get it. And I said: You had better have it open when I get back, or I'm going to do that.

I went back and got that gun and strapped it on and came back, and he not only had the

door open, the food was on the table. Never did have no more trouble with him. But I

will tell you what else--I never walked that deck by myself at night.

CHAFFIN: After that? Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: After that. No, sirree, not after that, I wasn't about to do it.

I saw the naval commander over there have to do the same thing. The afternoon

our ship was sunk, was sinking and the British ship came alongside and threw a bunch of

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

hoses in there and kept pumping the water out to keep it from sinking so they could drag

us up on the mud flats; and after they got through, this naval commander, who was a

naval attache over there, came aboard and told the Captain--how about giving--

CHAFFIN: It was a British Naval--

SMITH: No, it was an American Naval attache--We used to go to shore and stayed

with him some--he said: That British ship has been over here--he says: All they got to

eat is bread and lard. He said: They ain't got a thing else but some bread with some lard

on it. Could you give them a few sacks of potatoes. He said: Yeah. The captain said:

Yeah, we can give them some potatoes. We didn't know then we were going to be there

much longer than we were. So he sent after the steward. The steward is the person in

charge of all the food. He said: Have the galley men put some potatoes on the British

ship. Eight o'clock again. I never will forget eight o'clocks--and we waited and waited

and waited and waited--and nothing happened. Nothing happened. Finally, the naval

attache told the Captain--said--find out what the problem is. How come they haven't--so

we sent and got them. There were three of them. I can see them now. They came

walking up, sullen, marching up in a line from the flag deck down to the well deck. And

that commander walked down, and as he walked down, he pushed his coat back, and he

undone the flap to his .45 and pulled it over in his belt loosening the .45, and he walked

down on the bottom step. He says: Y'all got the word to put the potatoes on that ship,

didn't you? And they said: Yeah, we did. He said: I'm going to give you five Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library minutes; and then I'm going to kill every one of you sons of bitches. You ain't never

seen three people move. They almost throwed the potatoes over the ship. They had

them in there. So you see--I got real--my gut full of the unions. It didn't matter where

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

you were. They were supposed to--see, they put a small amount of naval people on the

ship because the ship's crew was supposed to line up and help you pass ammunition and

all like that. There wasn't but one member of the ship that ever helped me. You

couldn't get them to do anything. They wouldn't do anything.

Now, when I got back to the states, I wrote that report up, Tom, and put it in the

Board of Directors office in New York City and told them about all these incidents I'm

telling you right now about what happened--lack of cooperation. Did you know the Ports

Authority in New York City made me strike it off my report and wouldn't let me file it?

I got in New York City, then, and got shipped off of that ship and got put on the USA T

Arrow--that was the US Army Transport Arrow. It was headed for the Pacific and we

were going to make a call at the army depot in New York to load the ship up with

ammunition, so we put in there that morning, early. At about eleven o'clock a lighter

came--a lighter is a barge being pushed by a--

CHAFFIN: Yeah.

SMITH: You know what I am talking about. He pulled up alongside about eleven

o'clock, and at two o'clock he was sitting there--pump, pump, pump, pump--Finally,

about two o'clock he came aboard, and he said--and by that time, I had made Lieutenant

while I was in Merminsk [?], I had been gone so long. He said: Lieutenant, would you

let your men unload this lighter for me and put all this ammunition on board. I said:

We ain't going to touch it. And I said: Let me tell you why, and I gave him my Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library experience with it before. He said: Oh, I don't blame you. Forget about it. I said: I

am. I ain't going to touch it.

He pumped a way out about three o'clock. This was on Saturday afternoon

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

again--all of them drunk as lords, Tom--just drunk and wouldn't do anything and

nobody--and just wouldn't do anything. About three o'clock the guards from the head of

the pier came down and said: General--whoever was in charge of the army depot--would

like to speak to you on the telephone. I said: Oh, God--I'm going to get court-martialed

now. So I went out there--and I said: General, this is Lieutenant Smith from the US AT

Arrow. He said: Lieutenant, what I wanted to talk to you about--he said-they have

related to you all of your experiences with the unions about you boys having to jump in

and do things in an emergency and then they are charging two and a half times for it. He

said: If I assured you that nobody would get one penny pay for your boys unloading that

lighter; would you do it? I said: Your word's all I want, General. If you tell me that

they won't get paid, we will unload that stuff in nothing flat. I said have no objection to

it. I just don't want my men to do it, and they get paid for it. He said: I don't blame

you. You do it, and they won't get paid. We went there and unloaded it. I don't know

whether he kept his word or not; but at least I had the satisfaction of somebody said they

would. But there's--that's something else.

[End of Tape 3, Side A--interview and tx continues from Tape 3, Side B]

[Tape 3, Side B]

CHAFFIN: You ended up being recognized by the Soviet Union?

SMITH: Yeah, for this trip to Merminsk [?] Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library CHAFFIN: With what medal?

SMITH: Fall in line of War [?], Second Class. That's comparable to a Silver Star

in the United States.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

CHAFFIN: I wanted to back up a little bit--

SMITH: I also got a Naval Unit Citation.

CHAFFIN: Your father had a hundred and twenty-five acre farm in Mitchell County?

SMITH: Yeah.

CHAFFIN: There's an incident you mentioned in the past as being quite formative that

occurred while your father was in town. You were along with your father in town. He

was buying some--

SMITH: He was ginning cotton, a bale of cotton.

CHAFFIN: Could you talk about that?

SMITH: Yeah, all the time I was on the Court, I was always accused of being the

underdog's judge and they called me the 'po' devil judge' and--

CHAFFIN: Well, since you brought it up, why don't you explain the 'po' devil test'?

SMITH: Well, the 'po' devil test' is a fellow that ain't got any lawyer, no friends, and

no money--and particularly one that has no friends and no money, regardless of whether

he has a lawyer or not because then you have to get a lawyer appointed to him. A 'po'

devil' is just an underdog from scratch; nobody loves him and nobody is looking after

him--nobody is looking after him. And I was in that shape at one time.

CHAFFIN: Before we leave that, your test would be to find who's the 'po' devil' in the

suit?

SMITH: Yeah, well you could recognize them, the minute you read the record, Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library you'd know who he was, or you could tell it. And any judge on the court, his

philosophy--I have noticed this without an exception, his philosophy is tied to his

background, the way he was raised--the environment in which he was raised in is tied to

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

it. And the opinions are that way. I could go down to every judge on the Court that I

served with, I could point out to you their opinions, the way they were written, and point

out to you how it was tied into their background.

CHAFFIN: If that's true, and I were representing a union, would I be worried about

going before you?

SMITH: Uhh--the union, per se, or the union members? An individual--I never

held the unions, per se, against an individual--because it was the group that was setting

the policy. The individual had to go along--

CHAFFIN: Let's say a union, the union itself.

SMITH: I never did think I was impartial [sic] to them, but it is just like you never

think you are partial to your friends; you don't know, because you don't know where that

bargaining [?] line is; and that's the same way about unions. I was pretty hard on them.

I got softer towards the end because I got to learn that people were involved in it; and

they were pretty nice guys and--ladies and women. But this crowd on this ship, they

were bad. They were bad, Tom.

CHAFFIN: Tell me about the incident in the gin.

SMITH: We were just--daddy didn't have but sixty-two and a half acres under

cultivation. It was a two horse farm. It took two horses to cover that much land--had a

buggy and a wagon--there wasn't a car in our family 'til I was twenty-seven years old.

Everywhere we went, we had to ride a mule or go on a wagon or buggy. And I would go Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library to town two times a year with my father. Sometimes I could get to go Christmas, but

usually the first load of guana in the spring and the first bale of cotton in the fall; and

that's when I got to go to town, seven hours away. The rest of the time, I didn't see town.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

And I was up there, and I was a kid--seven, eight, nine, or ten years old--something like

that. I was less than ten years old, and daddy told me, said: Go over to the warehouse

and wait in the warehouse til I get through ginning this bale of cotton. I was so small I

couldn't even help gin so I had to be less than ten years old. So I went over there, and

went over there on the side and jumped up on a bale of cotton, was sitting up on a bale of

cotton. And a fellow named--I think his name was John, but I'm not sure of that. I don't

want to say 'John' because--anyway, a fellow named Butler, who was one of the people

who owned the warehouse, not only ran me off of the bale of cotton, he ran me out of the

warehouse. He wouldn't let me stay in there at all. And there I was. You can imagine

what a little country farm boy thought about the big shots that wouldn't even let him sit on

the bale of cotton waiting for his daddy to get through ginning cotton. He was going to

get it all anyhow up there in his business where the interest was eating us all up. I never

did forget that incident. It burned itself in my brain. I was being kicked around because

I was a poor boy from the country. That caused me to have more empathy for blacks

than they ever realized that I had because if I got kicked around as a white boy--what do

you think it was kicking them around.

I was teaching at John Marshall, not this time but the time before--I quit for

awhile--I had a young black woman come up to me one night. She said: You have

more--you have--I don't know just the way she put it--but what she said was: You have

more liberal policies in your thinking about blacks than anybody I have ever seen in your Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library position; can you explain why? I said: Yeah, there are a couple of reasons why. I

didn't give her the gin one--I said: There are a couple of reasons why. I said: First of

all, I've had to go to the back door, too. And let me tell you how. When I was a kid, my

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

daddy got the mumps. I was twelve years old, and he couldn't work. He couldn't do

anything. They relapsed on him. And I used to deliver eggs in a buggy every Saturday

morning in Camilla, Georgia--seven miles there and seven miles back, going to the back

doors of the rich folks delivering eggs at nine cents a dozen--and you went to the back

door and knocked on the back door. You didn't go to the front door. And I saw them

living well and high. And here I am beating my brains out and my daddy working

himself to death to give these same folks, pay interest--eight percent interest on cotton

that was making three and a half cents a pound. And it just burned itself into me.

And I told her--the other one I told her was that when I got back from the service,

I was teaching school in Hopeful--a Consolidated High School, and my wife and I both

were. I got back home from serving in September; and I was teaching until Christmas

when I could get in the University of Georgia. One cold, rainy November day, we were

driving home; and I was following a school bus; and the roads are sandy down there and

they get rutted real easily and washboarded; the school bus was bouncing along there

pretty good and hit a big puddle of water and just splattered water and sand all over three

black kids that were walking home from school. It was rainy and messy; and it got them

all wet and messed up. I didn't say anything to my wife; but I will never forget that

incident. I said to myself then: There is something about this that ain't right. Why

should those kids have to be walking home in the rain and get the damn white buses

splattering water all over them in a schoolhouse you can shoot birds through the side, and Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library we are in a nice, warm building? I said: There is something wrong here.

Now, I used that as testimony in a case down here, telling how I felt about it, and

the lawyer on the--the ACLU lawyer said: Well, why didn't you do something about it?

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

I said: I couldn't do anything about it. [He said]: Well, did you speak out? I said:

No. What could I do about it? A little ole teacher down there in a school

building--nothing to do about it. I said if I had spoken out about it and started raising a

bunch of hell about it then, I would have forever had myself branded, I would have never

gotten where I could help anybody. Well, he couldn't understand that or acted like he

couldn't. Well, you know that's so--good gosh from Zion. I was the one that

desegregated the gallery in the House.

CHAFFIN: What year was that?

SMITH: Nineteen forty--nineteen sixty-three. Whenever I was elected Speaker of

the House, I went to Carl--I said: Carl, we are going to desegregate the gallery. He said:

Sure, that suits me fine. I said: Now, I want to do it my way. He said: What's your

way? I said: I don't want no cotton pickin press conference--holding a press conference

and blowing up all this stuff about what we are fixing to do. I said all I am going to do is

issue the new rules and regulations which says the gallery of the House of

Representatives of the State of Georgia is open to all people [knocking--interruption].

Where was I?

CHAFFIN: I asked you what was the prior arrangement?

SMITH: Oh, they had a segregated area where they sat in. Blacks sat in a

segregated area.

CHAFFIN: Up higher? Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: Up--well, they just had an area of the gallery they sat in. They could sit in

from top to the bottom, but it was an area. Remember in 1962, it was George L.'s

speech, which said 'get them niggers out of the gallery' --and in '66 when I ran for

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

Lieutenant Governor, we had a devil of a time getting it out in the black community that

it was George L. Smith and not George T. Smith that said that--that George T. Smith

desegregated the gallery.

CHAFFIN: Since you brought it up, the George L. incident--how did that come about?

SMITH: I simply don't remember what happened. I was there on the floor of the

House. And I don't remember what happened, but I was there when he said it. It was a

little--as I recall, they tried to sit in the white section, but I don't want to be held to that--

CHAFFIN: Okay.

SMITH: And he said to get them--But, anyway, then I went to see Peter Zack; and I

told Peter Zack what I wanted to do, and he agreed with me. He said: Yeah, I'll go

along with you. So we did that. But, Tom, there is something I know is real interesting.

We put that out--anybody could sit where they wanted to in the gallery. There was one

black man the first five days of the 1963 session, there was one black man that came all

five days; he sat in five different places in the House. And I never remember seeing him

since. There is no doubt in my mind that he came to see if we really meant what we said.

See, I also let Senator Leroy Johnson preside over the Senate one time as the

presiding officer of the Senate; had senators get up and walk out of the senate, [inaudible]

got mad and left because I let Leroy Johnson preside over the senate. Leroy knows about

it; he and I laugh about it now. We desegregated Capitol City Club with Leroy Johnson,

do you remember that story? Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library CHAFFIN: Unh-uh.

SMITH: Oh, I've got some good stories I could just tell you.

CHAFFIN: What is that one?

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

SMITH: Well, every year, the First National Bank would have a luncheon for the

committee chairmen of the House and the committee chairmen of the Senate. They would

have the committee chairmen of the House one day and the committee chairmen of the

Senate the next day. So Leroy Johnson had been elected, and I had named Leroy

chairman of a standing committee--first black who had named chairman of a standing

committee.

CHAFFIN: Which committee, do you remember?

SMITH: Industrial development, I think it was. And so they came through and

invited us, so we all went. I didn't think anything about it. Leroy was a member of the

committee, you know--he was a committee chairman. It never occurred to me. I was

sitting there at the head table with Maddox, and there was a little commotion at the door;

and I saw Leroy peeping around the corner. And then I realized that they weren't going to

let him in. So I got up and went back and said: What's the problem? And whoever it

was--there was a black man and a white man standing there that was working with the

club--it was the Capitol City Club. They said: We can't serve him. I said: Why?

They said: It's a policy of the club. We can't serve him. And Leroy said: I was

invited here. He said: I was invited here because I'm a committee chairman, with all

these other gentlemen, and I want to eat with them. And I said: Either Senator Johnson

eats with us, or we all walk out. I said: Who's the boss around here? And they said:

Well--it's Mr. So-and-So. And I said: I suggest you get him on the telephone. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library And they came back about ten minutes later, and they said: They said he could eat.

I integrated the Capitol City Club [laughing]. Had you ever thought a country

boy from southwest Georgia would integrate the Capitol City Club?

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

CHAFFIN: To go back to your "lone wolf" role on the Court; you, of course had the

[inaudible].

SMITH: [Inaudible.]

CHAFFIN: There were a lot of dissents. I was going to say when they profiled you a

few years ago, there were two somewhat contradictory themes that emerged. One was

the populism; one was your--you were also somebody who was considered a member of

the inner circle and also opposed a lot of these bills to open government for--

SMITH: I did that because I was absolutely convinced that that was the best thing

for government. I--Everything I did, Tom, was from a storng, firm personal conviction.

It wasn't for political purposes because I think there are some things that I've done that I

was convinced that was what ought to be done--when, politically, it would have been

much better if I hadn't. But I just--when I have a conviction, I like to stand by it. And

you can't write dissents, good dissents--and I think I wrote some good ones; I'm being a

little immodest. You can't write good dissents if you aren't convinced you are right.

You have got to be convinced you are right and the other crowd is wrong to do it.

CHAFFIN: This is another question--you've been in government a long time, do you

think that government is better, or more honest or more efficient than it was?

SMITH: Government will never be efficient. Bureaucracies will never be efficient.

CHAFFIN: Is it anymore honest?

SMITH: No, uh-uh [saying goodbye to someone off record]-- Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library Same old story. It's made up of people, Tom. And as long as you've got that

many people around, some of them are not going to be honest.

CHAFFIN: So you don't see any theme of progress--

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

SMITH: Not from that standpoint, no, I don't. How can honesty be progressing

when you've had two governors to promise you, looking you straight in the eye, if you can

get a bill passed, I'll sign it, and both of them just veto it. Does that sound like honesty?

CHAFFIN: You are talking about your--

SMITH: My own--my own--

CHAFFIN: I want to get to that. But you would agree there has been an expansion of

rights--

SMITH: Oh, yes.

CHAFFIN: But beyond that, you don't any general--

SMITH: There has been a tremendous expansion of the rights of an individual

and--beyond that, I don't see any improvement in government insofar as honesty and

integrity and efficiency is concerned.

CHAFFIN And I think at one point--at some point, you once said to me that you

thought they had nullified the Fourth Amendment?

SMITH: They have nullified it. There's not any Fourth Amendment left. I was a

little--I was a little odd in this standpoint. You just didn't see somebody that favored the

death penalty and the Fourth Amendment all at the same time. Usually, anybody that

was a strong Fourth Amendment person was anti-death penalty. And I happen to think

that both of them are necessary in this society of ours.

CHAFFIN: You are opposed to the death penalty? Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: No, I am not opposed to it.

CHAFFIN: Oh--okay.

SMITH: I said I think that both the death penalty and the Fourth Amendment and

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

the enforcement of both of them is a good law deterrent--one of them is a deterrent

against the criminals and the other is a deterrent against against law enforcement officers.

The Fourth Amendment is a deterrent against law enforcement officers. And some of

the biggest grief I ever got on the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeals. I know

Charlie Weltner, and he was absolutely tee-totally completely against the Fourth

Amendment, and he wrote--He has written some opinions in this state that had no more

law to back him up than the man in the moon, just absolutely devastating the Fourth

Amendment, devastating. And he got three votes to go along with it.

CHAFFIN: I was going to ask you if you are saying that, to a degree, jurists are shaped

by their early experiences, how would you characterize in general--I mean, we have

talked about your persona, what you bring to the bench. What about your colleagues

collectively at the bench; do you think there is a general vigilance insofar as protecting

the rights of people with less power?

SMITH: I think that the courts from the Supreme Court of the United States to the

Supreme Court of the State of Georgia are less diligent today than they have ever been in

protecting the privacy and the rights of the individual.

CHAFFIN: Do you think that's a product of the political winds?

SMITH: I don't know what it is a product of--because I say they ain't got guts

enough to stand up for what's right. That's just my own personal opinion. Or maybe

they don't recognize how important rights are. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library CHAFFIN: Or just the dockets are so crowded--

SMITH: I really can't--I really can't put my hand on what is the cause of it, but I get

so frustrated in that court about that; I get so frustrated. They say: He's guilty, ain't he?

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

They found it on him, didn't they? I say: You are completely missing the

point--completely missing the point. I say: You don't hear about all those people they

kick the door down and there ain't nothing there. They just don't want to be bothered

about them. They don't tell you about them.

I used to tell the story all the time about this professor at Boston University. He

was lecturing us, some of the appellate judges; he is Italian--dark, long hair--very neat

dressing fellow. And he was stopped seventeen times in airplane concourses by the drug

enforcement as being fitting the drug courier profile--seventeen times. He said: It got

to be a game. I would try different things getting off. And he said: Every time I would

get off a different way or do a different thing, it would always fit their drug profile. He

said: I got off at the front. And they said: He was in a hurry to get away. That fits the

profile. He said: I got off the last. They said: He was hanging back, hoping we

would give up--the profile. If I got in the middle, they said: He was trying to hide

himself in all those people--drug profile. He said: Nothing I did--Everything I did fit

the drug profile.

See, they change the drug profile to fit the situation. And you never heard about

the people that were stopped and harassed. Hardy Gregory had a black law clerk; and

they stopped him out here at the airport. And they gave him a bad time. They were

fixing to get muscle on him, and he realized it. They got him off in a room against his

will. They were searching him against his will; and they were fixing to let that 'black Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library boy' have it. And he said: I realized that I was fixing to get hurt. And he grabbed his

card out and said: Before you go any further, maybe you ought to know it--I work for

Judge Hardy Gregory on the Supreme Court. He said they liked to died--they liked to

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

died.

CHAFFIN: The Atlanta PD?

SMITH: No, drug people--it wasn't the police; it was the drug folks. That guy

Marshall or Marshmallow or whatever it was out there--the drug people--he said they

liked to died. He said--talk about turning somebody aloose and apologizing and all like

this and getting him out of the door and no hard feelings. And he said you never saw it,

said they groveled. And I used that before the dadgum Supreme Court, and I said now

this proves it right here on the Court, what I have been telling you. It had no more effect

on it than pouring water on a duck's back.

CHAFFIN: Which justices did you find yourself closest to in terms of your judicial

philosophy?

SMITH: This is going to sound strange to you. I suspect Harold Hill and I agreed

more on cases than any other justices on the Supreme Court at the time I was up there.

And he's the one that tried to can me.

CHAFFIN: I am getting to that. You brought it up--

SMITH: Now, Hardy Gregory and I were together pretty good except on the Fourth

Amendment.

CHAFFIN: That's what I was going to guess.

SMITH: Yeah, Hardy Gregory--he and I were very close together. We--I guess, I

guess Tom Marshall and Charlie Weltner and I were farther apart than anybody else. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library CHAFFIN: Harold Hill--

SMITH: Yeah.

CHAFFIN: You want to tell that story?

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

SMITH: Harold Hill was a strange duck. He was a professor out at Emory, and

then he got on as being the top assistant attorney general. And then he practiced law one

year and came back to the attorney general office because, obviously, he wasn't making it

over there. He spent all his life, except one year--well, maybe a little more than a

year--on a salary. He had never had any experience. He had never been the president of

anything. He had never headed up anything. He never had been in a leadership position

anywhere. Anyway, you know, law school is a bunch of philosophy, and theory and stuff

like that, nothing practical about it. And when he got to be Chief Justice, he simply

didn't know what to do with the job. He thought that being Chief Justice carried with it a

lot more power and authority than it did. Chief Justice is just a figurehead up there that

the other justices elect to call meetings together; and if it is something they don't want to

handle, they refer to him, get him on the spot. He had no power, absolutely no power.

But he perceived that he had power. And he got in more hot water. He stayed in hot

water with somebody all the time. Now, see that big black book up there on the end--on

this end, this one right here. He made the statement that he was going to go out as the

best Chief Justice the state of Georgia had ever known, so he went about to get out the

Uniform Court Rules. Well, Tom, you can't get out a Uniform Court Rules. You can't

run the courts in Grady County like you do in Fulton County. There's just no way to do

it. It just can't be done. But see Harold had spent all his life just about it on the attorney

general and teaching, and he'd never had any practical experience outside the Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library 'doughnut'--we call it. He didn't know a thing about rural. I've heard him say that we

needed to get those Uniform Rules so we could teach those country judges how to be a

judge--there weren't any of them out there fit to be a judge. Well, that was his idea; and

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

he'd never been out there. So he's going to do that. And he went about it--and he went

at that thing--he would do things and start things and issue memoes that he never cleared

with our Court. He was going to do certain things with the Court of Appeals. He never

cleared it with the Court of Appeals. He got everybody mad with him--all of us, and all

of the Court of Appeals all swore at him because he just went at it like gutting a catfish.

And he didn't get along with the Building Authority because instead of calling the

Building Authority and saying: Can we do so-and-so, let me come over and talk to you,

he would tell them to come over and see him that he wanted to talk to them about

something. He threatened to call a press conference and expose the Building Authority

one time for sloughing off and not doing their job. And you don't get anything done that

way. If you don't hire and fire a man and pay his salary, you don't make him do anything.

That's the only man you make do anything. And he couldn't get anything done. And

an illustration of what I am talking about--that bridge on the fifth floor of the Courthouse,

you know where it is now.

CHAFFIN: Right.

SMITH: We had moved the Clerk's office across there to where it is now, but

before that bridge had ever been put in there. So we had to climb up to the sixth floor,

go through the cafeteria, and go around and get the--and I said something about it. We

moved about March, I guess it was--February or March--no, January--no, it was in

December before the legislature met. And on a Wednesday or Thursday before the Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library legislature returned on Friday, he called a meeting of the Board. We were trying to get a

bridge across there--the bridge that was put across there. He said: I've got to confess,

y'all, we can't get a bridge--money to build a bridge across there; we're just going to have

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

to climb the steps. And he was sitting at one end of the table and me at the other. And I

said: Harold, who did you go see? He said: I went to see the Green Door Committee.

I said: Hell, Harold, you don't see the Green Door Committee. They only do what

somebody else has told them. I said: Give me thirty minutes and I'll be back. I got up

and walked across there and went to see the Speaker. I told him what I wanted. He

said: Let's go see the Governor. We went to see the Governor. The Governor said:

You've got a hundred thousand dollars. Start building your bridge.

I went back and told them: We've got a hundred thousand dollars. Start

building the bridge. It just devastated him. Just devastated him.

CHAFFIN: You should identify the Green Door Committee.

SMITH: That's the committee that--the conference committee that settles on the

appropriations in the conference--that's what the Green Door Committee is. It devastated

him. And, you see, that power that he thought he had as Chief Justice, he could not get

the money to build a bridge, in thirty minutes, I come back with a bridge.

Another one, I would get pay raises all the time. They couldn't get anything. I

would go across and get a pay raise. Another example, he came up--I had just gotten out

with my heart by-pass, and he came up to see me. The legislature was adjourning in two

days. He said: I've been trying to get some money to raise employees in the Court, and

I can't do it. He said: Nobody will listen to me. He said: My secretary is not making

as much money as she did if she had stayed down at the Attorney General's office; and he Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library said: I can't get any money. Is there anything you can do? I said: Harold, the

conference committee has already met and agreed upon the Appropriations Committee

bill and signed it; and it's been printed. He said: Well, I didn't think you could do

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

anything. I just needed to talk with you. He was shaking just all to pieces. So, as soon

as he walked out the door, I picked up the telephone and called the Speaker's office and

said: Could I speak to the Speaker? They came back and said: Yeah, he's on the

podium, but just time he gets off the podium, he'll be here and talk to you. I went over

there and I told him, I said: We need--our employees haven't had any raise in two years,

and we need some money to raise them. And if I spend enough money--see, I was the

liaison between the Court and the legislature. I said: If I spend money out of our

present appropriation to raise these people fifteen hundred dollars a year, will you help

me get an appropriations supplement, an appropriation through next January to take up

the money I am going to use to pay them off. He said: Oh, hell, yes. Go on and raise

your folks. He said: Do it right now. I went back over there, and I did one smart

thing--I called the Court together, and I told what Harold had asked, and I told what

happened. This was in March. I said: Raise the folks right today. You know, Harold

wouldn't raise them until May. And he didn't raise them then until he had a meeting, and

he wanted me to go back and check on the Speaker and see if he was going to keep his

word. I said: You could go ask him if he is going to keep his word, but I said: You'd

better keep your butt in that chair, if you ask him if he is going to keep his word, he isn't

going to give you anything. He said: Well, I've got to know if he is going to keep his

word before I give anything. I said: Harold, for God's sake, you don't think the man's

lying do you? Well, I gotta know! So I got up and went back and sat down in my Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library office, propped my feet up on my desk, stayed there about fifteen minutes; I ain't called

nobody; but I went back and said 'just called him; he said everything was okay.' The

man just didn't know how to handle people.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

And those things--I fought him on that thing right there, and all that kind of crap

[indicating]--

CHAFFIN: That thing being the Uniform Rules?

SMITH: Yeah, I kept telling him it was a bunch of junk and it wasn't going to

accomplish anything. And I guess he just got tired of me and jumped on me and accused

me of bribery.

[End of Tape 3, Side B--interview, tape and transcript continue on Tape 4, Side A]

[TAPE 4, SIDE 1]

SMITH: I've almost got a book dictated, haven't I.

CHAFFIN: Yeah. Bribery?

SMITH: Bribery. Well, the first thing he accused me of--that was the last thing.

The first thing he accused me of was writing, publishing--what kind of--

CHAFFIN: Ghost opinion.

SMITH: The first thing he accused me of was putting out a ghost opinion.

CHAFFIN: Ghost writing opinion.

SMITH: I said: What do you mean?

He said: Well, we don't believe you put that opinion out. I said: You're crazy. I said: Just

sit where you are. I went back to office. I picked up my file. I brought it out; I

throwed it down--I said: Look through there. And this is--the Lord takes care of some Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library folks. This is one of the very few opinions, Tom, I wrote myself in longhand from

scratch on yellowbook paper--

CHAFFIN: As opposed to a clerk?

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

SMITH: Yeah, as opposed to a clerk. And I said: Just look through there. He

got that up. I said: Now, read it. And there the opinion was in longhand on yellow

paper. I said: Now, call my law clerk and my secretary and see what happens. I said:

Call them. Damn it. I want you to call them. He called them in there, and, of course,

they confirmed it--that I sat there in the office and wrote that thing in longhand; and Jim

Bentley read it to correct the English; and my secretary, Deedee, put it out. We did it on

a Friday afternoon, the fourth of March, because that was the last day we could put it out.

I said: How is it--where do you get 'ghost opinion' from there. He said: Well, all this

stuff you've got in there; it's in another brief down in Savannah. I said: So what? The

brief is public information. The brief in any case in this state filed in court is public

information. I can go in there and use any part of it I want to. He said: Well, we feel

like you got this before that brief was published. I said: You're right. I did. But, I

said, there is a provision of the Ethics--of the Code of Ethics--which says that any judge

can use any expert in any field he wants to as long as that expert has no interest in that

particular case. And, I said, the man I talked to had no interest in this case; and I knew it

when I did it. And I was just going by that. Now, that's one thing he overlooked. He

had forgotten about that.

CHAFFIN: What was the nature of it--Do you remember the style of it?

SMITH: Yes, it was the 'Nails case,' we called it. It was an insurance case--Nails

versus--somebody. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library CHAFFIN: That was from down in Savannah?

SMITH: I don't know where it was from. The case I was talking about was filed in

Savannah in federal court, that had the same language that my case had in it. But my

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

case was Nails versus something. And I wrote an opinion--and he kept saying--talking

about being influenced--I wrote that opinion, and I didn't talk to a single judge on the

entire court about it because I didn't think I was going to win. It was six to nothing

whenver I [inaudible]--and I've got five votes on the thing. And then he came and threw

all that stuff in there--and then he accused me--then he accused me--after I flung the

ghostwriting back in his face, and he saw that was wrong; then, he changed to something

else. He changed and said that the expert I got the information from came to me and

offered it to me because he had in his mind to get that case written so he could use it in

his case in Savannah.

I said: That's full of crap. I said: I got that information from him, and I asked

him for it in October last year. I finally went back and showed him the date and all. I

said that case had never been filed. I said: There wasn't even a complaint on that case

you are talking about down there. But he put in there anyhow that I had gotten, that that

man had come and offered it to me, that I didn't ask him for it. See, he turned it around.

I can ask him for it. There's nothing wrong with it. But he said: No, he came and

offered it to you, and you took it. The biggest lie there's ever been.

CHAFFIN: The case for which you wrote this was Southeast Fidelity Insurance

Company versus--

SMITH: Nails.

CHAFFIN: V. Nails--N-a-i-l-s [spelling]. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: That's right.

CHAFFIN: So how do you get from what you just described to Attorney General Mike

Bowers investigating you?

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

SMITH: He went and complained--

CHAFFIN: Hill?

SMITH: Hill complained to the attorney general and told the attorney general: I

want to investigate this thing--met with him clandestinely on the 3rd day of June, 1985, at

night in his office with two of his attorney generals--he wasn't one of them--and said that

they had to do something about that terrible thing I had done because I had been

influenced by bribes, I had agreed to write a case for a man if he would help me get a pay

raise--You see, that's what--I mean--no, no--get the legislation passed to remove the cap

on the age.

CHAFFIN: It should be said at that point, you were seventy--

SMITH: I was getting close to seventy--right close to seventy.

CHAFFIN: The retirement cap was--

SMITH: Was seventy thing, and I was trying to get it taken off. We had already

passed a bill at one time to take it off; and that's when Joe Frank had promised he would

sign it; but he vetoed it instead.

So then he said: You agreed to write this so Denmark Groover would introduce

your legislation and get it passed. I said: Harold, the Speaker of the House introduced

that bill; Denmark Groover didn't have a cotton pickin thing to do about introducing that

bill. I said: His name was on it but the Speaker of the House is the one I talked to and

the one who introduced it. And I said: They passed it. It has already been passed one Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library time, so why you can get that, I don't know. And I said: Another thing. It takes

four--you have to buy four judges. One judge, you can't buy--you have to buy four of

them. So one judge ain't got nothing to do. But he went down and told the Attorney

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

General that I had done that, that there was a letter out there and Irving Stolz was

another--Irving Stolz was the one that started all of this; and he and what's-his-name were

just like that because they were joined together in getting the Uniform Court Rules.

CHAFFIN: Stolz?

SMITH: Stolz was the first one that went to Hill and said that I had put out a ghost

opinion.

CHAFFIN: Let's identify Stolz, then.

SMITH: Irving Stolz--he's a former president of the Georgia State Bar and a lawyer

downtown, works with a--umm--I can't think of the law firm he was with. But he said he

was representing these people and for a ten dollar fee, so I went and confronted Hill with

it. And I said: Stolz said he got paid ten dollars for it. I said: That's not what it really

is. He's going to be joining all these cases that he is complaining about, and would come

about as the result of these two cases getting reversed--I mean, being affirmed, if we don't

reverse it. He said: They never offered me a fee. But, then, later,in another

confrontation before the whole court, I confronted him with it; and he said he did charge

them a fee--said he charged them ten dollars, so he could go talk about it.

So, you see, Harold had no business talking with that man. If he had a complaint

about misconduct of a judge of either, of any court, you report it to the Judicial

Qualifications Committee. You don't go talking to the Chief Justice about it because the

Court has to pass upon it later. Hill should have never let him talk to him about this Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library case. Hill was totally off base. He was breaching the Ethics--the Code of Ethics as

much as I was--as much as he accused--I didn't breach them, but he was breaching them.

And then he went back and called that case back and then reversed that case--the worst

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

injustice that has ever been done in the history of this state--just because a fellow didn't

know what in the thunder he was doing. And the attorney general said: Well, I am not

going to investigate it until the Judicial Qualifications Committee gets through with it.

The Judicial Qualifications Committee started in April and they wound up in

September--threw everything out. Then, the attorney general took over, and for three

weeks-

CHAFFIN: Just--excuse me--he took over after that [inaudible]

SMITH: Announcement, yeah, but with me in front of the other judges,

sitting--bang. I said: What you charging me with? He says: I am charging with

bribery and possibly violation of oath of office. And I said: Well, I'll tell you what right

now--ain't nothing there. You are just wasting your time. Only one thing worried me

about it, Tom. I was afraid he was going to turn over the letter which was forged. I'll be

honest with you; that's always scared me to death. Because I didn't trust him that

far--they had gone too far, too much money involved; it was millions involved in this--by

reversing that case; see that was a double recovery case. I don't know whether you are

familiar with that or not. It was a case of double recovery. And I said the legislature

never intended for double recovery--never intended for double recovery. And they

agreed with me to start with, and then this--Hill comes up with all this stuff. I still say

the only reason Hill ever brought it up is because he lost on his case.

CHAFFIN: Why don't you define double recovery? Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: Double recovery was when a man had an automobile wreck, and his

insurance company--you assigned--the insurance company paid you off for your

automobile, the damage to your automobile--and you assigned that right to the insurance

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

company. And the insurance company went out then and collected it from the other

insurance company to replace what he paid you. Well, there's a glitch in the law back

there. When the legislature amended the law, they left three or four words out, just

dropped them. I know what happened. Some secretary was typing along there and the

same words, and they dropped them out; and it made sense. And some lawyer picked

this up, and they went back, and they sued all the insurance companies. Now, your

insurance company paid you, and then you gave them the assignment; then, they went

against the insurance companies and got the money back from the insurance company;

they got another insurance company; they got it twice. I mean, the person was paid twice

for the automobile, and it was never intended to be that--millions of dollars, and you and I

paid it out of our own pockets for insurance.

CHAFFIN: This meeting where Bowers confronts you with these charges; was this

just a regular session or a special session?

SMITH: Oh, it was a special session--just the seven judges and Bowers.

CHAFFIN: In the evening or day?

SMITH: Daytime.

And Hill asked him, said: If you find that--see, the other outfit had already

turned me aloose; and Hill said: If you find there is nothing to it, are you going to hold a

press conference and announce that? He says: Yes, I am--I says: You go ahead and

write up your press release right now, Bowers, cause you ain't going to find anything. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library Now, when the Judicial Qualifications Commission issued that absolving me of

any wrongdoing, Harold Hill called up the chairman of that committee and read him the

riot act. He cussed them out for turning me aloose. He also spent an hour and forty-five

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

minutes before them one day prosecuting the case, trying to make them do something to

it.

CHAFFIN: I'm--I'm--When did they announce their finding?

SMITH: It was either late August or early September of '45.

CHAFFIN: Okay, so you were exonerated by the--

SMITH: Judicial Qualification Committee--and then the attorney general spent

three weeks at it. He hadn't had it many days before he wished to the Lord he could've

turned it loose. And when he finished with it, he wrote a letter to Harold Hill. He said:

Dear Mr. Chief Justice--He said: In keeping with your directions that I investigate

this--blah, blah, blah--and he called Harold up to read the letter to him. And when he

said: 'In keeping with instructions,' he said: Wait a minute; wait a minute; wait a

minute. I didn't tell you to do that. I did not tell you to investigate that thing.

Well, now, let me go back a little. I'm speaking out of Howell--I mean, out of

Bowers's mouth right now. Bowers told me out of his own mouth standing in the foyer

of the Capitol on the second floor--he said: Judge, whenever he told me, I didn't tell you

to investigate that, he said: my heart went to my shoetops. He said: I would have

never touched it, if he hadn't made the complaint to me and told me to investigate it. He

said: He was the sole reason that we investigated. He told us to--and he said: I had to

re-write my letter and address it to the Governor and to him--because of that.

CHAFFIN: How do you assess Attorney General Bowers' motives? Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: Oh, he had--Mike was on a high horse--a white horse with a high hat, then.

He was really slashing right and left. And he just saw where he had--He had just got

through convicting a--as I recall--he had got through convicting Caldwell; and he saw

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

another big plum--Oh, yeah, they just got through forcing Mike--Mac Barber out of

office. See, they offered me the same thing. I hired Tony Aim [??] and Carl Sanders to

represent me. And Carl went to see Harold Hill on Monday morning after he made the

charges on Friday--on Thursday--to try to find out what it was all about. And he

wouldn't talk to Carl. He just told Carl: Tell Justice Smith if he will resign, I'll drop all

the charges. Well, the stupid jerk couldn't drop the charges. He had already made them.

And that's just like a grand jury. You can't make a charge to the grand jury and wipe it

out. You have to work it out with the judge and the rest of them. He couldn't drop the

charges, and I knew better than that. See, that showed his power. He thought he had

power he didn't have. Carl came back to see me, and he says: I just talked to the Chief

Justice; and he says if you'll resign, he'll drop all the charges. I said: You tell the

pussy-gully son of a bitch this ain't Mac Barber he's fooling with. He said: I can't tell

him that. I said: I will. He said: No, you're not either. They thought they were

going to force me out just like they did Mac Barber. They had it all fixed up so they

could get a report. But, see, he had asked me to resign before that even, before any of

this ever arose. And this is the way he said it: He said, why don't--he said: You've been

in all three branches a long time--and all this kind of stuff--and he said--you're working

hard--you can retire--why don't you retire, and we can get a good judge appointed in your

place. Now, you can take what he meant by that either way you want to. It urinated me

off. I said: I'll tell you what, Harold, I was elected to this place; and anybody who takes Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library my place is going to be elected, if I have anything to do with it. Of course, it didn't turn

out that way but--

CHAFFIN: I was going to say--that's not exactly a real effective pitch.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

SMITH: No, it's a very stupid way to put it, you know. Even if you thought it, you

know, you don't say it. And the governor at that time was Joe Frank Harris. On two

different occasions, he tried to get me to resign--two different occasions--after he had

vetoed the bill.

CHAFFIN: Do you see--obviously, you see some sort of questionable motive on

Justice Hill's part in this?

SMITH: The only motivation I can--and this is based on what other folks told me,

too--he had just gotten tired of me confronting him with so many things and winning on

so many things; and he couldn't go across the street and do what I could do.

CHAFFIN: Did you see him in cahoots with the Governor in any sense?

SMITH: I don't know whether he and the governor were together or not, but all

three of them--all three of them were the only three people that knew the investigation

was going to take place. It leaked in the afternoon, and all three of them knew about it.

Somebody let it out.

CHAFFIN: All three?

SMITH: Hill--

CHAFFIN: Bowers--

SMITH: The governor--and Bowers and the Governor--Tom Perdue. Now, Tom

Perdue and what's-his-name were like that; and I don't put it beyond Perdue and him to try

to get me off, to retire, replaced. Now, going back again, Mike Bowers told me in that Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library same time I was telling you--and I asked him, I said: Mike, why did Harold Hill have it

in for me so?

I said: What was his purpose trying to get rid of me?

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

He said: Outside of Arthur Bolton, he was more afraid of you than any person in

the world--on the face of the earth.

I said: What was he afraid of me about?

He said: Because you could get things done that he perceived that he ought to be

able to do, but he couldn't do it. And he was not a big enough man to admit that anybody

that could get that done was better than he was, that you had to be doing something

crooked with the legislature in order to be getting the money and all that you were getting.

He said: Harold perceived that he was touched on high to be Chief Justice. And he

said: He just did not have what it took to be able to handle it.

CHAFFIN: It sounds like you had a pretty good rapport or relationship with Bowers

for him to be giving you that frank an assessment.

SMITH: Well, that rapport got there after this.

CHAFFIN: Yeah, I mean afterwards.

SMITH: Yeah, we got in pretty good rapport after that, yeah. But he told Carl

Sanders the same thing; and he told Bill Shipp the same thing I just told you. He told all

three of us the same identical thing.

CHAFFIN: And then Hill leaves the Court and--

SMITH: Yeah, Hill--the Attorney General released me and said there was nothing

to it in the middle of September; and by the first of November, he was trying to get a job

with law firms. He was trying everywhere, and he finally made it the early part of the Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library next year.

CHAFFIN: Anyway, for the record, Hill denies that this episode had anything to do

with his leaving the Court.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

SMITH: Oh, yeah, he does. But you see four of the remaining five judges on the

court all filed written reports with the Judicial Qualification Commission. And when

they filed written reports with the Judicial Qualification Committee after that, the other

one didn't understand what was taking place because he was hard of hearing, and he didn't

know what was going on. It was just a matter of a few days before they pitched it all out.

CHAFFIN: You don't want to say for posterity who that was?

SMITH: Richard Bell was the one--Richard just was hard of hearing. He said: I

just don't know what took place.

CHAFFIN: Events leading up to your retirement from the Court.

SMITH: See, I wanted to be Chief Justice, and everybody knew that; and that's why

I kept trying--not only was I trying to get the age [limit] removed for that reason; I think

it's wrong. Why should the Judiciary be the only arm of government that has an age limit

on the people in the court? You can have--you can have senile governors; you can have

senile speakers; you can have senile lieutenant governors; you can have senile legislators;

and they can do just as much damage as a governor can--as a judge can--because he's just

one-seventh of the Court. And I took the position that it was for one purpose and one

purpose only--to give governors the right to make appointments. And it was. The

whole thing was born by Jimmy Carter in 1972 so he could get appointments. And

Julian Webb was one of the main people he had in mind, he had promised a judgeship

to--and he couldn't get him one. You see, judges then didn't retire, Tom, because they Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library had no retirement plan. They couldn't live. When they retired they made less than they

did --so much lower than they did when on the Court; they simply couldn't live; they had

to stay on the Court to live.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

So he--instead of him putting in a good retirement and letting them go on and

retire when they wanted to, he put in an extraordinary good retirement and made them

retire within a certain length of time or they lost all retirement. And he forced a whole

lot--he appointed eight people in four years' time to the two courts. George Busbee

appointed fifteen, and he came right after him, you see. Those two people appointed

twenty-three judges there in about an eight-year term, because the older judges were all

forced to--they had to quit or lose their retirement. It ain't right. Well, let me tell you

what: I'm seventy-six years old, almost; and I am better equipped and better able to be a

Supreme Court justice today than I have ever been in my life. And we've got ways to

handle it. If you have to run every six years, people can see you. And if you are senile,

they'll know it. And, number two, the Judicial Qualification Commission has the

authority and the power to investigate you, and if you are senile and not doing the job,

they can get you kicked off. Now, the bill we got passed the last time--Lieutenant

Governor Howard came up with this idea, and I agreed with it immediately--we came up

with the idea that once you became seventy-five that you automatically submitted

yourself to the Judicial Qualification Commission; and they would require you to take a

physical, both mental and physical physicals--and if you did not pass either one of them,

you could not run or continue to serve on the Court. But if you passed both of them, you

could run and continue to serve on the Court, as long as you were physically and mentally

able by a good medical doctor picked out by the Judicial Qualification Commission. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library Now, that absolutely removed any danger of a senile person. And Miller knew that. He

just lied to me. He told me in Washington, D.C.--and I think it was the 30th day of

April; I'm not sure. Nineteen and--what was last year--1990--at the--

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

CHAFFIN: '91--

SMITH: Yeah, but last year is when he vetoed the bill, so it was the year

before--1990. We were up there on that big night that the business people--Gene Dyson

used to pitch for all the legislators and congressmen up there in the spring. That

was--what was Gene Dyson the head of? What did they call that? It used to be the old

Industry and Trade Committee, but he named it something else?

CHAFFIN: Oh.

SMITH: You know who I am talking about. We were up there. And Miller and

I--I saw him after the meeting was over. I saw him standing over there by himself, and I

went over there and spoke to him. And I don't know how it got into it, but we got into

talking about the governor just vetoing my bill. He had just vetoed it. And in the

course of conversation, I made the statement to this effect, I said: Governor, you and I

are in the same shape. I said: You've been hanging around being Lieutenant Governor

and working for years to be Governor, what you dreamed you wanted to be. I said: I've

been hanging around and working for years to get to be Chief Justice. And I said: I was

right there, but that man kept me from getting it by vetoing this; and there is no reason for

it.

He said: You get that bill; get it passed next year; and I won't veto it. We are

going to straighten you out.

I said: Thank you, Governor. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library We got it passed. He vetoed it. He traded out with Brooks, there ain't no doubt

in my mind about that--to appoint blacks to the Court in my place and in Bankhead's

place. There isn't any doubt in my mind about it.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

CHAFFIN: Which Brooks?

SMITH: The Brooks suit, lawsuit.

CHAFFIN: Oh. Let's back up, though. You did make it beyond your seventieth

birthday.

SMITH: Yeah, because--oh, yeah, yeah--because they passed an act that made it

instead of the ax falling at seventy, for it to fall at seventy-five.

CHAFFIN: And that was passed under--

SMITH: Joe Frank Harris.

CHAFFIN: Joe Frank Harris.

SMITH: And that was one of the things that Hill said I got done to write the

decision.

CHAFFIN: And Harris vetoed a bill to make it--

SMITH: He vetoed it twice after telling Roy Barnes and me he would sign it--twice.

CHAFFIN: And Miller once--

SMITH: Miller once; he didn't get a chance but once.

CHAFFIN: [Inaudible] I wanted to ask you, you were the last hand-picked Speaker of

the House, right?

SMITH: Well, not 'hand-picked'---the ones that the Governor put his blessing on.

CHAFFIN: Yes.

SMITH: Yes. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library CHAFFIN: I wanted to back up--you mentioned something about Reg Murphy once

writing a speech?

SMITH: Yes.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

CHAFFIN: How would--it is my sense that reporters and politicians kind had a--it was

a more symbiotic relationship during this stage. I think it would be hard to find a

reporter who would do that now.

SMITH: I don't know how to put this. But whenever Murphy came along, Hal

Gulliver came along, the fellow that resigned not long ago--

CHAFFIN: Bill Kovage [sp?]?

SMITH: Who.

CHAFFIN: Bill Kovage?

SMITH: No, the one who resigned who covered the Capitol. He did private

writing for awhile, and then he retired. All of those boys, about six or eight of them--all

of those boys had a rapport with the legislature. They never would--they never would

tell on or write anything on the legislator's private life. Anything that took place away

from that capitol that had no impact on or did not have any effect on the legislature, they

never wrote about. That ain't so now. It's no holds barred now.

CHAFFIN: Do you--

SMITH: It is just [inaudible]--

CHAFFIN: Which do you think is better for the State?

SMITH: The first one.

CHAFFIN: The first one? How so?

SMITH: Because, why do you delve in a man's private life? They don't delve into Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library your private life, and what you are doing is public, to a certain extent. As long as a

man's private life is not interfering with his business, you ought to leave him alone. And

if it is not bad enough to be known without digging back in there, it can't be affecting

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

anybody.

CHAFFIN: In what other ways do you think the press has--the relationship of reporters

to politicians--what other ways do you see it has changed?

SMITH: It has changed now to the reporters take an antagonistic attitude toward the

people in public office. They think it is their purpose to bring them down. They think it

is their job to bring them down, Tom. No longer is it their job to report what is taking

place, but they write editorials in their own stories to bring down public officials.

You take the abuse that Tom Murphy has taken over the years. It's incredible.

And Tom Murphy could have kept MARTA out. You wouldn't have no MARTA here

today if it hadn't been for Tom Murphy--many things he has done that you wouldn't have

here today if it hadn't been for him. But because the news media doesn't get everything

they want out of it--you see, the news media does not give me, as a public official, the

right to disagree with them without I'm being wrong. And then they abuse me for it

because I'm wrong. I heard a talk show man this morning. I cut it off. I don't ever

intend to listen to him again. Because he didn't agree with another man on what the

Republicans stood for, this morning, he says: You're dumb. Well, now, that just burned

me up.

CHAFFIN: Which show?

SMITH: It was on WGST.

CHAFFIN: Oh. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SMITH: It wasn't Boortz's show. It was somebody who was filling in for him this

morning. He says: You're dumb.

CHAFFIN: For not agreeing with the Republicans?

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

SMITH: Yeah, he didn't agree with the Republicans, and he told the Republicans,

he said: Anybody that'd believe that has got to be dumb. And I say: What do you

mean dumb? I say: I've got a master's degree in Business Administration. What do

you mean 'dumb'? Just 'cause I agree with you, I'm dumb--I mean, disagree with you, I'm

dumb. See, that's the point they take. If you just disagree with me, you've just got to be

wrong.

CHAFFIN: Jimmy Carter's launch for the presidency in 1976--do you think that

changed Southern politics or made Southern politicians more aware of opportunities

beyond the South? In the old days, it was kind of assumed that southerners couldn't get

to the White House. I just wondered if after Carter's election--

SMITH: I couldn't honestly say that. But I can certainly see how anybody would

say: If Carter can get elected, I can--without being any--meaning anything ugly about it.

CHAFFIN: I am just saying: Did that possibility that a politician might be more--

SMITH: He would be more apt to try--

CHAFFIN: Would he be more vigilant about what he says in terms of how it may play

later?

SMITH: Well, I think Miller is a typical example of a man playing to the national

media hoping--to get to speak like he did and hoping to get an appointment to the cabinet.

I think he is a typical example of a man who is playing the national media, just like--just

like beating it like a drum. They follow-- Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library [end of tape 4, Side A. Interview continues on Tape 4, Side B--transcript continues.]

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

[Tape 4, Side B]

CHAFFIN: Did you have many dealings with Jimmy Carter over the years?

SMITH: Most of the dealings I had with him were when I was Speaker of the

House and he was Chairman of the Education Committee in the Senate. And we in the

House referred to him as the intellectual fool--absolutely no common sense--just, it was

his way or no way. Just the way he ran the White House--his way or no way--no

common sense at all. We used to refer to him as the intellectual fool, smart but no

common sense.

Now, I didn't have anything to do with him because, see, Carl Sanders and I were

on the same side; and he hated Carl Sanders' guts. He was elected Governor and went

into office. And I called his office up there the first week he was in there because there

was something happening. I ought to have made a list of all these things. And I don't

know what was happening, but it was something I thought he would be interested in--of

interest to him. So I called his office and told them who I was. Now, here was a man

who had been in the lieutenant governor's office less than a week, called the governor's

office. And they said he was busy and he'd call me back. Two weeks later, one

afternoon, I got a call at the House from somebody in his--some aide somewhere--said:

We saw your name here on a list and said--you made a call recently. Do you remember

who you wanted to see or what it was all about?

I said: Forget it. And hung up the telephone. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library Now, if a man who has been in the lieutenant governor's office less than five days

gets treated that way by Carter, how do you reckon people got treated? You can

understand how Capitol Hill complained now, can't you? That was because [inaudible].

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

Then I got, finally, I got an appointment with him. I got the appointment weeks ahead of

time; seven o'clock in the morning was the best I could do. I don't know why I went, but

I went. I ain't never bothered him since. I ain't never bothered him since.

CHAFFIN: Not a lot of [inaudible]--

SMITH: I hope a two by four falls down his throat. I oughtn't put that on there,

had I? But there is no love between us. I'll tell you that. You know what else he did?

They were going to hang my picture in the State Capitol when I got out of the lieutenant

governor's office because I was the only man who had ever presided in both Houses, back

to back. He stopped it. He wouldn't let--they already had the portrait almost painted.

CHAFFIN: Have you ever mixed it up on any particular issues?

SMITH: No, it was strictly Carl Sanders. That was the whole thing. He hated

Carl so; he didn't want any of Carl's friends. It was carried over. But he wouldn't let

that picture be hung. Now, that ain't secondhand stuff. Ben Fortson told me. I had

already sit for the picture. They already had it almost completed.

CHAFFIN: Where is it now?

SMITH: Hanging in the Capitol. That was the one we hung finally. That was the

one we finally hung in 1980.

CHAFFIN: Who has been the most effective governor in your mind?

SMITH: Carl Sanders--hands--head and shoulders. And I know folks say: He

was partial to him. He was the only man that took over that governor's office and ran it Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library with a semblance of common sense. He was never seeking--he wasn't seeking

sensationalism. A lot of stuff Miller is doing, he is just seeking sensationalism and

playing to the national news media.

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

CHAFFIN: What would you call the major achievements of Sanders--and, again, you

were Floor Leader?

SMITH: No, I was Speaker of the House.

CHAFFIN: Speaker of the House. Excuse me.

SMITH: The first thing he did, he rebuilt and recreated the confidence of the people

in their governor and their government.

CHAFFIN: Coming after Vandiver?

SMITH: Well, coming after what's his name--Vandiver was a good guy, but he

wasn't strong. Vandiver wasn't strong. He wasn't strong, and Vandiver had problems in

"No, not one." And he spent his whole four years trying to live that down and get away

from it.

But, see, Carl came along right when the county unit system was kicked out.

And he made a real good job of melding people together. We did more to get people

together--He did--In education, he did a real good job in education. Nobody ever gives

him credit for it, but he did. But Carl was not a sensational type governor. He just did

his job, did a good job. He wasn't hunting sensationalism.

CHAFFIN: He at the time, though, was viewed as someone who could go on to

national, to the national level?

SMITH: As a liberal. He played around with Lyndon Johnson a little bit about

being lieutenant governor--I mean, vice president, yeah, he was. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library CHAFFIN: He went hunting with Johnson a few times, I understand. How serious

was Johnson's interest?

SMITH: I don't know. Now, knowing Johnson, probably not serious at all. He

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

would cultivate his mother, if he could, to get ahead--Johnson would. He was a one

hundred and ten percent politician all the way; and nothing stood in his way.

CHAFFIN: Did you ever meet him?

SMITH: Yeah, he was one of the most pleasant fellows you ever saw. He was a

good ole Texas cowboy, just one of the most pleasant fellows you ever saw. You

couldn't help but like him.

CHAFFIN: Tell me, under what circumstances did you spend time with him?

SMITH: He came here to speak for some reason, I don't know. And he stayed at

the old Dinkler Plaza Hotel. And being the Speaker of the House with Carl, I was up in

the suite with him some; and we rode down the elevator together and sat on the platform,

not beside of him, but that's--I wasn't with him, personally, over forty-five minutes or an

hour; but I talked with him. And, then, I was at the White House with a group one time

at a meeting.

CHAFFIN: When he was at the Dinkler, he was already President?

SMITH: Yeah, he was already President, yeah.

CHAFFIN: Do you miss the Henry Grady Hotel?

SMITH: Huh?

CHAFFIN: Do you miss the Henry Grady Hotel?

SMITH: Well, I did. But I don't miss any of them anymore, now.

Well, I tell you what, Tom, I've had a-- Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library CHAFFIN: Thank you--

SMITH: --an exciting, unusual life. Who'd ever thought a little ole country boy

that was born and raised on a little ole sandhill farm in southwest Georgia would have

GGDP, George T. Smith, Date: 8/20/1992

ever been able to get where I did--just blind luck, luck, being in the right place at the right

time, blind luck. You know, there are just so many things that happened right. I never

belonged to a political organization. I never belonged to a political clique in the state.

Nobody claimed me. Nobody wanted me because I rowed my own boat--I was that lone

boat wherever I was.

CHAFFIN: Who are your political heroes?

SMITH: I don't know if I ever thought of one, who one was. I never have--Truman

was one of my favorite people, I guess because he was kind of like me, you know; he

came up the hard way. I guess that is.

CHAFFIN: Did you meet any other presidents?

SMITH: Face to face? Johnson is the only president of the United States I ever

shook hands with, talked to, looked at.

CHAFFIN: Other than Jimmy?

SMITH: Oh, yeah, I forgot about him.

[Whereupon, recording of the interview is concluded midway on Side B of Tape 4 for 8-20-92]