William Armstrong Oral History About Bob Dole

This document is from the collections at the Dole Archives, University of Kansas. http://dolearchives.ku.edu ROBERT J. DOLE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT Interview with WILLIAM L. (“BILL”) ARMSTRONG April 2, 2007 Interviewer Brien R. Williams Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics 2350 Petefish Drive Lawrence, KS 66045 Phone: (785) 864-4900 Fax: (785) 864-1414 This document is from the collections at the Dole Archives, University of Kansas. http://dolearchives.ku.edu Armstrong 4-2-07—p. 2 Williams: This is an oral history interview with former Senator Bill Armstrong for the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas. We’re in the Washington [D.C.] office of the Investment Company Institute, where the senator is visiting as a member of the board, for a board meeting. Today is Wednesday, May 2, 2007, and I’m Brien Williams. Let’s start out with your recollection of your first encounter with Bob Dole. Armstrong: I haven’t the faintest idea, but I’m sure it was at some kind of political event. I suppose it was at a Lincoln Day Dinner or a fundraising event or something like that, because I knew Bob Dole. I’d met him. I didn’t know him well, but I was aware of him and had shaken his hand long before I came to Washington, so I’m sure it’s when I was in the state legislature in Colorado and he was coming to town for a Lincoln Day Dinner, a political event, campaigning for somebody. It was in that kind of a setting. Williams: Do you remember his running for the vice presidency, and did he come to Colorado at all during that time? Armstrong: I do remember his running for vice president, of course, but I don’t recall specifically whether he did that or not, not because my memory has failed completely, although it’s failing, I guess, but because his visits to Colorado in that era were commonplace. I mean, he was in and out of Colorado all the time. In fact, one of the things that I’m sure will come out in your interviews is that he was every place all the time. I mean, he logged more miles in airplanes than airline pilots did. He was always going someplace. In fact, there was a time later than the period you’re referring to, but there was a time I think when he was on a plane four or five nights a week. After the Senate was done, he’d jump on a plane and go to Cincinnati or Denver or New York or someplace for an event, and did that just week after week after week after week. So I just don’t remember when it was, because he was in Colorado a lot. He was an important figure in Colorado, not so much because he was a neighboring senator, although of course Kansas and Colorado are neighbor states, but because he was regarded, even before he was even really an official leader, he was regarded as a leader. He was a person that Republicans looked up to, looked to for hope. I mean, some of This document is from the collections at the Dole Archives, University of Kansas. http://dolearchives.ku.edu Armstrong 4-2-07—p. 3 those years that I’m talking about were really pretty desperate times. If you were a Republican, you felt like you were on the Endangered Species List. Yet he was full of energy and full of vitality and was able to preach the gospel, and made those who heard it feel good about the party and about themselves and about the future of the country. Williams: During your six years in the House of Representatives, did you have any contact with him? Armstrong: Yes, I did, a little. Not a huge amount, but I had some. In fact, again by this time, by the time I was in the House of Representatives—and I was elected in 1972—Bob Dole was by now an established senator and was highly thought of, and he was one of the people that we looked up to. Of course, when it came time for me to run for the United States Senate, I sought him out and asked if he would endorse me in the primary, which he declined to do. I was running in the primary against an astronaut, Jack Schweigert, a good guy, by the way, who later died just days before he was to be sworn into the House of Representatives himself. But Bob didn’t think that was necessary or appropriate. I thought if I could somehow prevail upon him to endorse my candidacy, it would help me a lot in the primary, which it undoubtedly would have. Turned out I was okay and won the primary anyway. But he was a natural person for me to go to. I knew him well enough to do that, considered him to be sort of—well, I considered him not to be exactly a conservative godfather, but I considered him to be a conservative leader and a person whose word would carry a lot of weight with the kind of people who vote in Republican primaries in the State of Colorado. In fact, that’s true—this is now more than three decades later, that’s still true. If Bob Dole were to come to Colorado and say, “Vote for Smith,” or, “Vote for Jones,” it would carry a lot of weight. Williams: He was the chairman of the Republican National Committee for a couple of years. Did you have any contact with him when he was— Armstrong: Of course, he was in the Senate during that period, so I was well aware of that, although my relationship with Bob was never primarily related to his position as chairman of the Republican National Committee. He was, as I recall, what was called This document is from the collections at the Dole Archives, University of Kansas. http://dolearchives.ku.edu Armstrong 4-2-07—p. 4 the—I may be wrong about that. Was he called the general chairman? Was there also a full-time working chairman at that juncture? I’m not sure of that. But those of us in the Senate, while we were well aware of his leadership of the party and also, for that matter, the reason that he was chosen, because he was Mr. Republican. Let’s face it, he was the person who personified the ideals and the energy and the future of the party. While we were aware of that, we mostly thought of him as a senator and related to him at that level. Williams: He was carrying the water for President [Richard M.] Nixon for a long time, known as Nixon’s man in the Senate. Armstrong: He was. Williams: Then that relationship got a little strained when Nixon decided to appoint [George H.W.] Bush as the RNC chairman. Were you aware— Armstrong: I wasn’t in on that. I was aware of it, and I, of course, knew about it, but I wasn’t consulted about it or in any way involved in that decision. Williams: Did you occupy a leadership role in the House? Armstrong: No, I did not. I was in the House for three terms and served on the Armed Services Committee, and then later on the Appropriations Committee, one of the worst experiences of my life, I might add, but did not seek or win any position of party leadership. Williams: You intrigue me with that comment. Can you explain why? Armstrong: Sure. Because it’s a huge committee. I left the Armed Services Committee, of which I was a junior member—everything is by seniority—because I was useless, because everything the committee was trying to do I agreed with, and instead opted to go to the Appropriations Committee, where I was also a junior member. I think I was about number 54 out of 55 or something like that, and I think [Rep.] Jack Kemp was either 54th This document is from the collections at the Dole Archives, University of Kansas. http://dolearchives.ku.edu Armstrong 4-2-07—p. 5 and I was 55th, or vice versa, way down at the bottom, and I didn’t agree with anything the Appropriations Committee was doing. I mean, there were days when I would go home literally sick to my stomach at the way these people were wasting the material wealth and the accumulated savings and the work and effort and thrift of the people of this country, and they were just throwing it out the window, people who had never earned anything in the private sector in their life, who had no idea of what the real value of the sweat and tears and toil of the people who had made this money, and they would just confer it on the darnedest projects and enterprises, and literally I found it terribly frustrating. I guess during the time I was on the House Appropriations Committee I probably wrote more minority opinions and dissenting views than the rest of the committee put together. In fact, one of the senior members of the committee, as an act of friendship, came to me and he said, “You know, Bill, if you keep acting this way, you’ll never get any dams built in your district.” I said, “That’ll be fine. I haven’t got enough water in my district. I could impound all the water in my district in a teacup, so it’ll be fine.” But he was trying to show me the ropes, and I did not wish to be shown those ropes.

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