>> joseph crespino recounts the life and political career of the late strom thurmond the south carolina. the author recalls the many events that composed of the senators 47 year career to his 24-hour filibuster in opposition to the civil rights act of 1957 and his movement from the democrat to the republican party in 1964. this is about 45 minutes. >> i want to talk to you today about my book, "strom thurmond's america" and i want to begin by telling you a story, a strom thurmond story and when you go and you do research in south carolina and you go into the

archives to see what you are interested in about, you tell them strom thurmond and they say let me tell you my story about strom thurmond. that time they did something for him or they time they saw him do something crazy. my story about strom thurmond begins in late july, 1992 and i am on a flight from washington d.c. to charlotte, north carolina. i had been an internet intern that summer off on capitol hill and one of my regrets of the summer was that i had never seen strom thurmond because all of my fellow mentor said you have got to see strom thurmond. he such an unusual appearance about him and i did not know what they meant really. but i had my suspicions. so i'm on the flight and i look ahead in front of me and i see a man who has got an orange

colored hair practically. it is so brightly colored and the first generation. i think to melf that must be what strom thurmond's head looks like and of course it wasn't strom thurmond. i knew that when people were reaching over and trying to shake his hand. i thought i want to shake his hand too because i had seen them that summer for the first time and i met all of these politicians that i had seen on tv and it had been a great thrill and i was about to go home and speak it might as rotary club and i wanted to tell them about all the famous people that i met in washington d.c.. i was going to try to shake his hand when i got off the plane but as i got off the plane there were people already lined up to shake his hand. and i did not get in line. i was thinking, i was in the constituent and i'm not a south carolinian and i really don't have anything to save them early and to be honest i was a little

self-conscious. it was a busy airport. there were a lot of different kinds of people there and i was self-conscious about standing in line waiting to greet a man with all the segregationist harangue so was good enough to say that i had seen him and keep on rocking. but i get down, i'm conflicted though. i walked down to the concourse about 100 yards and i look back and hear everybody is shaking his hand and here is this 89-year-old man at the time. he has got a suitcase, briefcase in one hand and a travel bag in the other and a package under one arm and he is just shuffling down this busy, crowded airport. without thinking i go back and introduced myself and i say senator thurmond i name is joe crespino and i would be happy to help you get to your next flight. he said are you sure you have enough time? i want to delay you. i said no sir, have plenty of time. so i picked up his bag and we walked together for about 10 minutes.

i was just trying to make conversation with strom thurmond so i told him about all the people i had met that summer and he said nice things about the various colleagues that i had met in that kind of thing. i told them i was on my way -- ahead a girlfriend from florence south carolina and i said some silly comment about south carolina girls, i guess because it was the kind of smalltalk one made with strom thurmond. i got into his flight hanushek his hand again and that was it. but i thought about that story a lot as i have written this book because the story really is a metaphor for the difficulty i had in writing about or the challenge that i faced in writing about this very controversial figure. you know there is no easy or straightforward way to write about a figure as controversial as strom thurmond. sometimes in reading this book i have wondered if some of the stuff in the book is not an effort on my part to carry strom

thurmond's bag, you know carry his baggage. it's good to know he has got their -- baggage that he has carried that the other challenge i had, the real challenge i had in this book was to fight the urge to not kind of simply walk away and not meet the man demand face-to-face and present him as a three-dimensional character, someone real, breathing human being. said that is the challenge i think. what i wanted to do really was to write a book about, right a history of strom thurmond's america in a way in a critical but dispassionate way in a way that she would shed light on some of the issues that have shaped each of our own america today and i hope in doing so you can add a sense of, a measure of reason and passion to these issues that embroil our politics today and the divide is so. so that was the goal.

that is the mission as it were, but what are those big issues? what are the issues that the history of strom thurmond's america comes to? a lot of us remember who strom thurmond was. strom thurmond was the 1948 dixiecrat presidential candidate. strom thurmond was one of the lead authors of the 1956 southern manifesto, which is the protest of the supreme court decision in the brown versus board of education decision in 1954. strom thurmond is the recordholder to this day of the longest one-man filibuster in the "guinness book of world records," "guinness book of world records," 24 hours and 18 minutes he spoke against the 1957 civil rights bill. we remember strom thurmond today is one of the last of the jim crow demagogues and he was. he was one of the last jim crow demagogues but what we forget

about thurmond is that he was also one of the first of the sun belt conservatives. now what do i mean by that? what is a sun belt conservative? the sun belt, it was one of the major stories in the history of 20th century american politics and that is the flow of jobs and industry, for resources and population from the states of the northeast and midwest to the south and the southwest in the post-world war ii period. southern states were recruiting industries. they were passing right to work laws. they were receiving lots of funding for the federal government to build military installations at a time when the united states was involved in the cold war with the soviet union, so states like mississippi, states like georgia, texas, florida, southern california, arizona and north carolina are all being transformed in the post-world war ii period by this historic

shift in population. just think about it. this period from 1964 to 2008 can be thought of this kind of the period of sunbelt dominance in the american presidential history. if you think about it, every president elected from 1964 to 2008 comes from a state of the sunbelt. lyndon johnson from texas, richard nixon from california, gerald ford was not even elected vice president. he was from michigan. jimmy carter from georgia, ronald reagan from california, the first george bush from texas and bill clinton from arkansas and the second bush from texas. so 2008 is in some ways a watershed election it's in being the four-year period of sunbelt dominance. there were issues that were critical in the politics that developed, they came out of the sunbelt and they tended to have a conservative back to them. they tended to be oriented

around history of strong national defense, of an opposition to unions and the defense of free enterprise politics and also in the sunbelt, and the south and southwest that we see the rise of the 1970s when we come in to talk about religious rights, the rise of evangelical and fundamentalist involve political process in a new political way. thurmond was at the forefront of all of those issues in his own politics on national defense. he was a staunch anti-communist and played an important role in anti-communist politics -- policies and was one of the things that led him to switch parties in 1964. here's a key figure in opposing labor unions and he did so alongside people like eric goldwater starting in the late 1950's even though early in his career he was a staunch advocate of unions in south carolina back in the 30s and 40s when the union felt was an important vote in south carolina but he

switches in the 50s and 60's them by the 1970s becomes a die-hard supporter of business against labor. then he also had an important role in conservative evangelical politics. he joins the bob jones -- in 1950 and bob jones had just moved to the country from the university and thurmond needed votes from the south carolina. he had lost to olin johnson and that began a long process, long relationship with thurmond with conservative fundamentalist and evangelical folks who were looking to get involved in the political process. so we need to understand thurmond's racial politics in the midst of these other conservative causes, these conservative histories that he was very involved in and to see how they intersect with one

another. i think doing so it gives us a history of what strom thurmond's america look like and it helps us rethink not only what was going on in the south out what was going on in the national conservative political realm as well. freethinking strom thurmond forces us to rethink history. a history that too often thurmond is left out of because we only remember this cartoonish racist figure from the deep south. let me read you an excerpt from his introduction that speaks to this point. one reason we forget about strom thurmond is because he was so dog on old, right? [laughter] thurmond predated the founding generation of what is commonly understood as a modern conservative movement. he was different a friend to william f. buckley senior then to william f. buckley jr. the founding editor of national review who was one of the central figures of modern conservatism.

buckley senior had an antebellum estate in camden north carolina became a friend and regular correspondent with the then governor thurmond would have would have had no problem identifying the strom thurmond america. i don't know of any other man in public life whose views i entirely approve of wrote thurmond in 1956. his son has started a new magazine and buckley told thurmond his son was a fine public speaker and very sound. one of the most notorious editorial buckley jr. published in his early years came during the signature battle in thurmond's career against the 1957 civil rights. why the south must prevail appeared for four days before thurmond's historic filibuster. i am -- the central question emerges was whether the white community in the south is

entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail politically and culturally in areas in which it is not predominate numerically. the sobering answer is yes, the white community is so entitled because for the time being it is the enhanced race. buckley jr. and thurmond would seem was seen to occupy separate polls in conservative politics. their actions alone marked their different backgrounds and experiences. it is easy to forget that buckley was once a fledgling writer and publisher are trying to insinuate himself into a world of politics and letters. his son of a new oil baron and a priceless contact for father and son both after the sea change inaugurated by the civil rights movement thurmond would not be the only conservative leader with the segregationist record in need of scrubbing. the mid-20th century american right was a smaller, more interconnected world than then we often remember.

now i think strom thurmond's life is interesting for the light that is shed on southern and we see a properly for the light is shed on southern national politics in the second half of the 20th century. but strom thurmond's life is also interesting simply as a -- the man lived to be 100 years old. is full of twists and turns. is full of psychological complexity and unintended consequences and it was full of secrets too. we know the secret of his having fathered an african-american daughter and that we learned about after his death. i want to talk a little bit too about the motivation of thurmond, what drove him and a lot of that comes back to his childhood but the most important figure in thurmond's life was his father. his father had an interesting career. his father was an up-and-coming young politician, kind of in the political machine of pitchfork

ben tillman. ben tillman was the biggest men in south carolina politics at the turn-of-the-century and an infamous kind of demagogue of the jim crow south. he was the biggest man in south carolina and thurmond's father was kind of a lieutenant in its operation. thurmond's father had been elected as kind of a county prosecuting attorney and he was a successful -- he was on the rise when he got into a dispute one afternoon with a man. the man picked a fight with thurmond saying that he had, he was complaining about the position his father had not been appointed to. the man was drunk and he was very -- he cursed thurmond and all that kind of stuff and they got into a row. thurmond walked back to his law office in the man came back around. thurmond ended up shooting the man and he was acquitted for self-defense but the county's's

biggest law enforcement official, doesn't help if you are on trial for murder. that is not good. infect thurmond would run for the house of representatives a couple of years later and he ended up finishing in the district 3. he would never run for electoral politics again but he ends up being an important behind-the-scenes guy, an important behind-the-scenes figure in south carolina politics and he would support the candidate. he managed -- and one of the campaigns he had managed was a campaign of a very influential in the life of young strom thurmond. it was the 1912 gubernatorial election between ira jones who was a former speaker of the house in south carolina and the candidate that strom thurmond's father will thurmond supported. colman believes was another important figure out a south ofh carolina politics, a very

influential figure and thirdly strom thurmond would tell the story about when people asked him how did you get involved in politics, when did you want to -- when did you know you wanted to be a politician? i saw that race between ira jones and kohl believes and i thought he -- saw what he did and always felt that i would learn how to speak on the stump and the will to defend myself. thurmond was never known for his skill on the stump as a speaker but that is the way he remembered it. that is the way he eyes told the story and he told it over and over when reporters asked him that question. i think some of thurmond's others had missed what is important and what is interesting about that story. strom thurmond recalled the debate between them as his first lesson in political self-defense and the importance of being skilled in the old verbal warfare of the south.

it was always matched by his math power with the masses. in 1912, at age nine, thurmond encountered up close and impressionable age the power of the demagogue and experience both fearsome and alluring perk of thurmond himself drew on the background 36 years later when as a presence of candidate he's doped the racist resentments for states rights democrats. is in birmingham in july 1948 the thurmond offered his own warm of bleaseism swearing there weren't enough troops to abandon segregation. he drew upon it in the 24 hours and 18 minutes denouncing the civil rights bill of 1957 as well as the other or rations he gave in the massive resistance areas such as the 1958 speech in the total and unremitting war from the supreme court's

usurpation and unlawful arrogation of power. let thurmond also remembers the disdain of his father and others for blease and how blease mocked the attitude and opinions of the thinking people. it was one reason why later in his career thurmond would embrace the kind of magical thinking about his own adventures and demagoguery, or attempting to rationalize them into something other than mere blease. for the rest of his career the poles between which thurmond's political ambition would swing were savaged in the 1912 race. the intelligence, honorable jones was also hamstrung and toothless. blease, despicable as he was and his circle of respectable leaders, the stylist, clever, informative old. would seem the fair-minded print of principle became moment

combing gold and perhaps too with his father's failed ambitions. while others would decry to demagogue it and thurmond knew it to be something else as well, keith of passion, path to influence and renowned that his father always longed for but never achieved. now there is one more thing i want to say about strom thurmond's early years and it revolves around one of the great things i found in this book. i have done it through a gentleman from edgefield south carolina, thurmond's home, a man who was himself an amateur historian, lawyer in edgefield and a very talented historian and a close friend of the sermons. he pointed me to a biography of a man named frances butler

simpson. frances butler simpson was in his own day a well-known historian himself and in fact frances butler simpson had a magnum opus, a biography of pitchfork and tillman from his own hometown. simkins grew up in this -- a town in south carolina and at some point he sat down to write this kind of gossipy, thinly fictionalized account of his hometown called lynch would. this thing was never published and it is now preserved only in the archives at longwood university in virginia where simkins taught his whole life but it offered a really unique perspective on edgefield and the area in which strom thurmond was growing up in an area which will thurmond was the biggest influential figure in edgefield political life there in the early 1940s. let me read you a little bit of this and then i'm going to stop

talking. for some time in the late 1940s or early 1950's frances butler simkin set down to write a fictionalized memoir about growing up in edgefield or lynch would as it appears in his text. it was never published and is preserved today only in his personal papers and longwood. the untitled manuscript is fascinating for the light it sheds on this one time neighbor. simkins grew up in a house right across from the strom thurmond grew up. simkins was five years older than strom thurmond. and he wrote about the two characters by the name hog stoops and his son, stone. these fictional characters follow thurmond's real-life accomplishment of will and strom thurmond as to make the pseudonyms perfect. one time simpkins even slips and

refers to him as well. despite some minor errors in fact the manuscript provides an intimate perspective on well and strom thurmond and on edgefield. simkins treatment of hog stoops is relatively generous describing him as cold-blooded in his law practice, learned in the technicalities of the law with interest in justice for a black culture. simkins also pronounced him deserving of the honorary degree awarded him by the university of south carolina. hog was lynch woods man of moderation and charity who quote refused to speak unkindly of anyone. the town's most popular citizen for 40 years. yet the distinctive quality that emerges from simkins portrayed was that of a fixer. he ruled lynch would county through matching nations so secret that through decades could live under his authority without being aware.

it was the quality that would deride him as a pussyfoot and that is it the thing i didn't play about the 1912 election is that kohl's blease didn't just attack i read john some mist on. the attack strom thurmond's father and strom -- in front of the young strom thurmond calling him pussyfoot bill for the way he went behind peoples backs and did not confront his political enemies planned to man in that kind of thing. simpkins rutted a man whose candidacy for prosecuting attorney was pleasantly cut short. as well as the schoolmaster whose dismissal of stoops quietly engineered despite visiting the man before he left town to tell them how greedy he was. stupas is by slightly different pre. he was only half students. the other was stone and it was from his mother side of the family that he was said to have

inherited a penchant for acts of wild folly prepared an uncle on his mother site who is galt possessed of an energy so maniacal that he dissipated a fortune in numerous foolish enterprises. stone black his deceptiveness simpkins wrote what his father achieved by an direction stone pursued openly and in the process attracted enemies. characteristics of hog and stone students and simpkins memoirs provide context for the defining event in the lives of will and strom thurmond. in the mid-1920s when strom was living at home and edge bill and teaching at the local high school a situation developed inside the household holding to one of strom's acts of wild folly. among the large home in penn st. was a 16-year-old african-american girl named kerry butler. in october 1925 butler gave birth to a daughter who she named as he made. six months later butler's sister

took us e-mailed her to pennsylvania where she was moving with her husband. she passed the child to another sister mary washington who raised if -- her as her own. as he may learn the identity of our actual mother. three years later, she met her father, strom thurmond in his law office just off the town square in edgefield. essie may's birth in october coincided with an abrupt occupational change for thurmond. he had been a schoolteacher in edgefield and the paper in augusta announces on the very day that essie as he made his he quits his job in the middle of the school year and is taken a job with a real estate firm and is going to be assigned in richmond virginia and he stays in that job as a real estate agent in virginia until several months after essie may as an infant had been moved to

pennsylvania. but then he comes back to edgefield county and starts his career again teaching high school. thurmond departed from edgefield the same month of essie may's earth and returned a few months after after the childless move to pennsylvania pennsylvania. we do not know whether will thurmond played any of rule and strom's temporary career change or an essay may's incentive pennsylvania. is hard to imagine however that a man so careful, so mindful of his reputation in edgefield and throughout south carolina and so hopeful about his son's ambitions would not of had some hand in making sure that the young man indiscretions did not imperil his teacher prospects. will thurmond experienced how a youthful mistake can forever alter a political career. perhaps his legal and financial contacts helped get strom out of town and perhaps he handed over money to make sure the baby was

transported out of the state. if that was his desire a quiet conversation with kerry butler's relatives is all that would have been required. leaders the sermons would pass money to essie may's caregivers. to frances butler simkin says to be believed, there may have been a difference between father and son, sense of judgment or discretion that did not make it from one generation to the next, yet there remained an awesome fact that testifies to the suns ability as a fixer. the details of his -- a secret that likely would would have ens career had it been revealed that practically any point in his nearly three-quarters century of public service he took with him to his grave. now that is a story about how that secret began. it began i believe really with will thurmond and with will thurmond's aspirations for his

father. of course by the 19 '90s it became the worst kept secret in south carolina. everybody suspected it after some newspaper reporters tracked down them living in washington. one of the great documents i found was from 1957 when thurmond gave a filibuster for 24 hours and 18 minutes. there was an item published in the african-american newspaper in the "chicago defender" and the bulk of the item was quarreling over how was thurmond was able to speak for 24 hours with only one bathroom break. you have got to keep your voice lubricated. you have to keep taking drinks of water. the story that thurmond told to the press was that he had gone down to the senate room and had intentionally dehydrated himself so that when he drank water his body would absorb it like a

sponge. now i asked urologist friend of mine about the viability of that in he was pretty -- but that is the story that has always been told. what is interesting about that piece in the african-american newspaper, the "chicago defender," they said that the rumor around capitol hill was that thurmond had been outfitted with a device designed for long motor trips like a catheter. what is interesting about that as there is a memoir published a couple of years ago by an african-american man from south carolina who said that he was there when thurmond was outfitted with this bag that ran down his leg. so it is one of those urological mysteries. about strom thurmond's career. [laughter] but at the end of that item that was largely about the history of the filibuster, was this oblique

statement, something like there are rumors or there is talk that thurmond is not as opposed to black people as it might seem, you know. so you can take that and say there were rumors published in 1948 when he was a presidential candidate that he had black cousins in edgefield. we also know that essie may was already enrolled in school in south carolina at that time and there are darty been rumors in the black community ever since then that she was the governor's daughter. and it comes up again and it happens after thurmond passes away when essie may holds a public news conference saying strom thurmond was my father. and they change the strom thurmond monument in california. at it was a black legislator in the assembly that said we have a name of the other four children on that monument so we should

put essie may's name there too and they did. they change the monument. you know that old saying it's written in stone, if it's written in stone you cannot change it. that is not true. we gained change stone all the time. they have to because they get the dates wrong about when people die or when they were born or their names are spelled wrong. i talked to the guy who wants a company that changed the strom thurmond memorial there in columbia and what you do is you take granite dust. you pound that granite until it's a fine powder and then you mix it with crazy glue, seriously, plain old crazy glue which when it hardens is actually harder than the stone itself. they take that mixture and they pounded into where the other letters had been carved. they actually pounded into above the surface of the stone and they have to sand it smooth. then they carved back over the filled in area so they had to replace -- though that was the trick. they could add essie may's name

on the bottom. there was space there but it said father for children and they had to change the 4285. so when they carved back over that filled in the area, you don't get that granite powder really really fine, has to be finer than baby powder, because if you don't when you carve back over it, if you look closely the i has a chip in it on the upper right side. and the thee, the left side of the v assaults quickly because there is a big chip their too. it opened up the stone the standing open up the -- [inaudible] you can change the stone but you cannot change it very easily and you can see what is in effect a kind of scar. this stone has been scarred by the work that has been done to change that for him to a five. in the epilogue it reflects on

the meaning of that. different ways at different people could read the significance of the scarred stone and in reading that stone, think about the legacy of strom thurmond on our politics today in the south in the nation. if you want to know more about how you can read that stone i encourage you to buy this book. [laughter] and read it for yourself. and you might learn something. i will even sign the book today. it's a painless process, i promise you. it's been a pleasure to be here and thank you all for listening and coming out. [applause] i think most of you probably, if you have questions, you probably ask them before in another context but if there are any questions i would he have the kitfield and. >> i have a question. i am very proud to know you are

a end i'm sure -- is smiling on you. my question is, about trent lott and his comments, when he got in trouble, saying that he -- [inaudible] >> he said he was proud that his state voted for thurmond back in 48 and the other states followed when the country had all the problems. >> was out in the book or did you address that in the book? >> yeah, mentioned in real time. it happens first in 1980. he said that in 1980 when he was introducing term and here in jackson. thurmond was the main speaker at a rally for ronald reagan a few days before the 1980 presidential election.

and for me it was interesting, lott is really in some ways a kind of figurative child. the last chapter the book is called all strom's children and it is wary deal with the revelations about essie mae washington williams but also put that in a broader consumable context to say these are strom thurmond's -- the forehead nancy fireman and essie mae washington williams but there are a generation of southerners -- southerners who is on a big switch. so that is what i talk about in the last chapter. so i talk about that as just kind of part of thurmond's reaction and others reaction to reagan in 1980 and then act party in which strom says again in 2002, this was in december of 2002, that was really thurmond's 100th birthday party but it

was also kind of a going away party because it was his last year in the senate, his term is up in january of 2003. he goes back to edgefield and he only lives for six more months. and at that point it's an interesting moment because that controversy kind of raises for the whole of the modern conservative movement. who is strom thurmond and what role has he played? and also who was trent lott and what role would he play in politics? what is interesting about that is how other republicans and other conservatives are responding to that issue and responding to that controversy so that is part of the analysis too. they are interpreting thurmond and of course what a lot of national conservative leaders are doing, they're trying to keep thurmond as the crazy old uncle is the conservative revolution, the guy who is not really important to this conservative movement that has

been going on in the last few years or so. and part of my book is arguing that thurmond was there all along and was a key figure in people to take them seriously, not just by republican strategists that bob thurmond was a kook. they didn't think he was a kook and goldwater did not think he was a kook when he was getting him to switch parties and endorse them. richard nixon did not think he was a kook one kerman -- thurmond helped him carry key states in the south when wallace was running in 1968. that controversy raise those broader issues really about thurmond's role in modern conservative history and it's one of the things that sparked the idea for me to write the book in the first place. >> do you make much mention of -- the 40th president? >> rubin wright and strom

thurmond, before they were on the same ticket they were something arrivals. in fact, the fascinating story that early on, the whole dixiecrat thing, was a reaction to the address for truman gave in early 48. all the southern governors meet in north florida outside of tallahassee at the governor's conference and that is where the whole thing starts. reuven wright was the one who said we have to leave the democratic party and we have to leave it now and thurmond, and said no. they said what we need is a 40 day cooling off period map where we figure out what we are going to do and he offered a resolution for the cooling off period map that then and asking people what he they could do he realize not that many people were interested in cooling off

and they wanted to stay fired up. thurmond then kind of double down. the reason many people in south carolina recognize this at the for the time is that thurmond was looking ahead to 1950. his gubernatorial term would be up in 1950. he warns the rest of the senate the next rung on the latter and to do that he had to get to the right of all in johnson who was an establishment new dealer. in some ways it's ironic thurmond runs for president so he can run for the senate. he runs for the presidency in 48 to establish, to really you know, establish this among the states rights crowd in south carolina and across the region and to make a name for himself there. enough he was something of a liberal in south carolina. because of his labor politics but also because he had called

the fbi in to investigate a lynching that it happened in south carolina 1947 and that was not a popular thing to do, to call in the fbi to investigate a lynching but that is all in the book or go it's a fascinating moment in his career because that is when a lot of things are really moving around. both in his career and in southern politics. [inaudible] i notice his name is not listed in the index. >> haley barbour is unusual in modern republican politics, enormously talented guy who started off in mississippi politics and rose to great prominence on the national scene as party chairman and in 96 but there have been a lot -- he was an important figure and an importance of inner and

building the modern gop because you know there have been important south carolinians like lee atwater. atwater is a guy who comes out of kerman's political shop that really has a huge influence on gop politics in the 1980s. he runs george bush's campaign in 1988 so i don't talk about barbour simply because this is really about thurmond's story and its influence and i'm sure haley barbour and strom thurmond met many times but they were coming out of different states and -- [inaudible] well but atwater was his daughter's age. they were the same generation in kerman had an important -- thurmond ran for a long time, 48 years in the senate. there is more about barbour in mississippi rather than south carolina. any other questions? thank you all again.

>> one question. you criticize the man from "the wall street journal." >> oh i'm so glad you brought this up. [laughter] i did not ask him to ask this question. his name is lee -- >> lee edwards. that's right. he has written several histories of the conservative movement. he himself has been a member of the concert a moment, in an important person that. >> it is a jealousy? >> it is not jealousy, can tell you that the one of the things that did disappoint me about mr. edwards being asked to write that review is one of the things he takes issue with is that i call him thurmond's ghostwriter. it was thurmond staffers, former staffers of thurmond who had characterized his work on the book in ghostwriting. i talk to them and i've been talking to them -- i e-mailed mr. edwards and i

asked him if i could interview him about his relationship is strom thurmond and what work he did in that kind of thing and mr. edwards said 40 years ago you know, the interview would be a waste of your time and mind so the only thing i deduce was he was saving up the time to write a book and he got a number of other things wrong. he quoted goldwater speaking with thurmond and talking about the important people rising in columbia south carolina in 1964 and what he didn't say that the meeting was it began by everybody singing dixie and they were raising confederate flags and "the new york times" reported in that meeting that a considerable section in the speech was devoted to denouncing the 1964 civil rights act. any review that says the only key issue and thurmond's career was constitutionalism and national security i