Q&A Café at Nathans with Vernon Jordan

In early October, well before the mid-term elections that now are practically old news, Vernon Jordan sat down for an interview with Carol Joynt about the current political scene, his early life growing up in the segregated South, his friendship with presidents, and his current life as one of Washington's, and the nation's, best connected movers and shakers. Not only does he work powerful jobs in two cities - Akin Gump here, and Lazard Frères in New York - he's also on the Congressional Commission on Iraq. Along the way he found the time to write a wellreceived memoir, Vernon Can Read.

CAROL JOYNT: I said this was a Foley-free zone, but where do you think this Foley scandal is going to go? VERNON JORDAN: Actually, I don't know, and I sort of don't care [Laughter]. I don't know whether it's going to help the Democrats, or whether it's going to hurt the Republicans. They're eating each other up. I sort of like that. As I was leaving my office, I heard Newt Gingrich say that the Democratic Party is a party without morality and ethics. It reminded me of my course at Howard University Law School in Federal Jurisprudence. It was a section having to do with "standing." Before you can say something, you have to have standing to say it.

JOYNT: What if you were counseling Dennis Hastert? JORDAN: Well, it's not likely that I would be asked to counsel [Laughter]. He might quit after the election, but I'd like to see him quit before the election, if he's going to do it, because I'm a Democrat.

JOYNT: Do you think your party has a chance of getting the House and the Senate back? JORDAN: I think, but I'm not making any promises and I'm not making any bets, because I think the electorate is infused by fear.

JOYNT: Fear of ...? JORDAN: Fear about terrorism and national security. I think the last two elections were about fear, and this administration has tried to make this mid-term election about fear.

JOYNT: Fear of this administration? JORDAN: No, this is not about fear of the administration. It is about fear that somebody is going to attack us. There is "a preoccupation," and that is somebody's strategy, but I don't think it's going to work this time. You know, I registered to vote in Georgia when I was 171/2, so I've been voting for better than 50 years. I've been interested in public policy and politics all of that time. I saw my father and my brother go away to World War II and fight to make the world safe for democracy, even though my dad could not vote in the white primaries. I care about this country. I believe in democracy. I believe in the free enterprise system. But I have never, in all of the time that I have been a voting citizen, been more concerned about America and its standing in the world than now. Last week, I was in Rome and London, and whether it was limousine drivers, or waiters, or the heads of companies and institutions, they don't like us very much anymore. I worry about that. They do not like how we are behaving in the world, and that's relatively new.

JOYNT: But it's one person they don't like, don't you think? JORDAN: Well, that one person got elected twice, and so feelings are transferable. We are not without some blame. JOYNT: Let's go back in time. When was the last time you experienced racism, yourself, personally? JORDAN: There's a club around town that I go to every now and then, and when I walk in, I get the feeling that some of the white ladies are going to say "would you bring me a Mint Julep, please?" But racism, as I experienced it as a kid, was stark and real. The sign said "colored" and "white." It's subtle now.

JOYNT: The extreme is that you got shot by a white supremacist. JORDAN: Yes, I did, but I'm here. JOYNT: Do you have any anger from that you've carried from that incident? JORDAN: No, let me tell you about anger. Anger is corroding to the person who possesses it. It doesn't affect the person to whom it is directed. I was in the hospital 98 days, and I decided in the middle of my hospitalization that having been shot in the middle of the night unsuspecting, that maybe it would have some impact on my psyche, and so I did something I don't believe in doing, I actually went to the shrink. And as I say in my book, "When he got better, I stopped going." [Laughter].

JOYNT: You made a big decision, way back when, to go with law over the ministry. JORDAN: I spent the summer of 1957 in Chicago trying to decide whether I was going to spend my life at the altar or at the bar. In the process, I discovered sin, and I liked it [Laughter]. I decided that the church and society would best be served if I became a lawyer, rather than a preacher.

JOYNT: Your brother, Warren, was married by Martin Luther King, Jr. JORDAN: Warren's wife, Evelyn, grew up in Ebenezer Church. Like all of the girls who grew up in Ebenezer Church, and who lived