Political Leaders

Tipper Gore

Bill Thompson
Photo: Nancy Rhoda

Years before her husband Al was elected vice president of the United States, Tipper Gore established a reputation of her own, as a social issues advocate. And her issue, in the late 80s, was protecting America’s children from sex and violence in the media.

She was co-founder of the Parents Music Resource Center, which led the effort to require warning labels if on media contained profanity, sexual references, or violence.

I met her in 1987. She had just published a book called Raising PG Kids In An X-Rated Society.

So here now, from 1987, Tipper Gore:

Tipper Gore celebrated her 72nd birthday day-before-yesterday.

She and Al Gore raised four children.

They separated in 2010.

George McGovern

Bill Thompson

The 2020 Democratic National Convention is getting underway this week. It’ll look a lot different from any past convention, though, because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Let’s go back 48 years, to 1972, when the Democratic party nominated South Dakota Senator George McGovern as their standard-bearer.

Running on a liberal, anti-war platform, McGovern lost badly to Republican incumbent Richard Nixon — who, less than two years later, resigned in disgrace over the Watergate scandal.

When I interviewed George McGovern 2004, in he had just published a book advocating for those same traditional liberal values.

So here now, from the summer of 2004, George McGovern.

After his 1972 loss to Richard Nixon, George McGovern remained in the U.S. Senate until his defeat in 1980.

McGovern died in 2012 at age 90.

Vladimir Pozner

Bill Thompson
Phgto: Augustas Didžgalvis

For decades the USSR — the Soviet UInion — was a major world power, but it was held together largely through force and intimidation.

Things began to unravel in the late 1980s — the momentum built after President Ronald Reagan delivered these words at the Berlin Wall:

The wall did come down two years later, and two years after that, the Soviet Union came to an end.

Watching it all, from a front-row seat, was high-profilpe Soviet journalist and broadcaster Vladimir Pozner, who was also a freqeuent guest on American television, largely because in his youth, he spent a lot of time in tghe U.S. abd vecame fluent in English.

I interviewed Vladimir Pozner several times, including in 1992, less than a year after the breakup of the Soviet Union. He had written a book called, appropriately, Eyewitness.

So here now, from 1992, former Soviet journalist Vladimir Pozner.

Vladimir Pozner is 86 now. He’s a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Barack Obama

Bill Thompson

A few years before he was an Illinois state senator, long before he became a U.S. Senator and years before the nation elected him our first African-American president, Barack Obama was a law professor and community organizer.

Barack Obama
Photo: Official White House Photographer

Just before he went off to law school, Obama traveled to Kenya to learn more about his father, and to try and put some perspective on his mixed-race heritage.

The result was his book “Dreams From My Father.”

So here now, from 1995, Barack Obama.

Tomorrow, August 4th, is Barack Obama’s 59th birthday.

Mark Shriver

Bill Thompson
R, Sargent Shriver

Father’s Day is next Sunday and all this week on Now I’ve Heard Everything we’re featuring interviews about fathers.

Few men are as widely praised as Sargent Shriver was. after his death in early 2011. Thousands of tributes hailed Shriver not only for his great public accomplishments — including founding the Peace Corps, building President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty — but also his personal virtues.

Mark Shriver Photo: Amanda Rhoades

He was, in nearly everyone’s words, a “good man.”

I met his son Mark Shriver about a year-and-a-half after his father’s death, in 2012, when he wrote a book about his father, and what he had learned from him in life and in death.

So here now, from 2012, Mark Shriver.

Mark Shriver, who’s 56 noe, is President of the Save the Children Action Network. He and his family live in Maryland.

Dan Quayle

Bill Thompson

Dan Quayle was a Republcian U.S. Senator from Indiana. and not a very well-known Senator, when George H.W. BuSh chose him as his 1988 running mate. Quayle took a lot of heat from critics who derided him as an intellectual lightweight.

Bush won that election, and Qualye became America’s 44th vice president.

But the 1992 camapign proved more difficult for Bush and Quayle.

It was in June of ’92 that Quayle visited an elementary school in New Jersey. It wa supposed to be just another routine campaign photo-op, a school spelling bee.

A 12-year-old boy went up the blackboard to spell his word, “potato.” But Quayle “corrected” him, insisting there was an “e” at the end of “potato.”

Things just kind of went downhjll from there.

I first met Dan Quayle about two years later, after he’d written a memoir. And as you’re about to hear, he had a sense of humor about The Potato Incident.

Here now, from 1994, Dan Quayle:

Dan Quayle is now 73. He lives with his wife Marilyn in retirement in Arizona. They’ve been married for 47

Selwa “Lucky” Roosevelt

Bill Thompson

It’s not a government job that gets a lot of attention or media coverage.

Photo: National Council of US-Arab Relations

But the office of U.S. Chief of Protocol is a uniquely sensitive position. If done right, no one even notices. But if done wrong, it can spark an international crisis.

Former journalist Selwa Roosevelt — always known as “Lucky” — was Chief of Protocol under :resident Ronald Reagan, from 1982 to 1989. That’s longer than anyone else has ever served in that position.

I met Lucky Roosevelt the year after she left the government.

Here now, from 1990, Selwa “Lucky” Roosevelt.

During her tenure, Lucky Roosevelt presided over more than 70 state visits and restoration of the historic Blair House in Washington.

In 2012, President Barack Obama awarded Lucky Roosevelt a presidential commendation for her government service.

Lucky Roosevelt is now 91.

Roger Ailes

Bill Thompson

Years before he became head of Fox News — way before there even was a Fox News — Roger Ailes was a media consultant. Most prominent among his many clients, perhaps, was President Ronald Reagan. Ailes was an adviser to the President in his 1984 reelection bid, and was indirectly responsible for one of that campaign’s most memorable, and decisive, moments.

I met Roger Ailes in the fall of 1987. He’d written a book to help coach people in the art of public speaking and dealing with the media. The books promised to reveal the “secrets of the master communicators.”

So here now, from 1987, Roger Ailes:

Roger Ailes went on to become CEO of the fledgling Fox News in 1996. He held that post until 2016 when allegations of sexual harassment forced him out.

Roger Ailes died in 2017, thee days after his 77th birthday.