by Karen Brune Mathis
Managing Editor
Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, who served 18 years in the Senate after two terms as Florida governor, visited Jacksonville Thursday to sign copies of his latest book, “Keys to the Kingdom.”
Proceeds from the book sales benefited the Jacksonville Public Library.
Graham left the Senate in 2005 and unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 2004.
Graham, 74, graduated from the University of Florida in 1959 and Harvard Law School in 1962, and was admitted to The Florida Bar that year.
He was elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 1966 and served in the state Senate from 1970-78.
He served as governor from 1979-86 and then was elected to the U.S. Senate.
During his terms, he served 10 years on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, including 18 months as chair in 2004.
An author, his works include “America, the Owner’s Manual: Making Government Work for You.”
He chairs the Bob Graham Center for Public Service at the University of Florida.
He also was appointed by President Barack Obama to co-chair the National Commission on the BP oil spill and served on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
He met with the Daily Record Thursday morning.
Why did you write the book?
Three reasons. One, I had co-chaired the inquiry into 9/11, came away from that with a sense that there were some significant unanswered questions that had been in the back of my mind for 10 years. This novel gave me the means of providing those answers. Second is because, I’ve written a nonfiction book that covers some of this same space called “Intelligence Matters.” It was fairly heavily censored, as was the final report of the 9/11 Commission.
I was told by an academic who ran into a similar problem of censorship, that the standards of censorship are lower for a fiction book than they are for a nonfiction book, where you’re not representing that this is total truth, so I decided to write my concerns in a fiction piece.
I’m a member of the CIA’s External Advisory Board, and as such, I’m required to submit pre-publication of anything that I write that touches on the intelligence community. Every draft of this novel was submitted, reviewed, and there were actually very few and no significant changes.
The third reason is I’ve given a number of commencement speeches in which I’ve advised the graduates that to stay intellectually alert, that they should periodically challenge themselves to do something that is different than they’ve done before, and hard, such as learning a foreign language, or learning to play a musical instrument. When I retired in 2005, I thought, I want to eat my own cooking, and this was my different and hard project.
You are known to take notes and keep a very strict record of everything you do. Do you still do that?
Yes.
When did you start doing that, and how easy is that?
My father was in the cattle business, and when he saw a sick cow or something, he’d write it down. So I did it from adolescence, but in a disorganized way. Then when I began running for governor in 1977, I was meeting a lot of people for the first time, and I wanted to get their name and address and something about what it was they were interested in, so from that necessity, I developed using these notebooks, and now they serve that purpose. That’s a daily log of what I do throughout the day, which helps me if there’s somebody that called, and I haven’t returned their call, I’ll have it noted in my book.
You must have a lot of those stacked up some place.
2,500. I keep the last two years of these notebooks at my office because I will frequently refer to those. Those that are older than that are at the University of Florida Library, I think the same place (former U.S. Sen.) George Smathers has his materials.
Let’s switch gears. Do you have any comments on the president’s speech last night and the rollback in Afghanistan?
Yes, I do. I think he was fulfilling the commitment that he made. My concern is that al-Qaida no longer, for all practical purposes, is in Afghanistan. The estimate is less than 100 operatives in the whole country. If al-Qaida is our target, we’ve got to have a different real estate than occupying real estate in Afghanistan. I think the essence of that new strategy is the way we killed bin Laden. Very good intelligence, people highly trained to carry out those targeted operations.
We also can’t just focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan, because today, al-Qaida has a noticeable presence in Somalia and a very large presence in Yemen.
The al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has become more active in trying to attack the United States than the old al-Qaida back in Afghanistan and Pakistan. So I think we need a new strategy that focuses on the eradication of the enemy that started us in Afghanistan.
At the same time we’ve got to continue to work with the Afghans in developing their military and their law enforcement and their criminal justice systems so that when we do fully leave they’ll be able to fend for themselves.
The 2012 presidential election will see President Obama and a Republican contender. But also, Florida Sen. Bill Nelson is drawing opposition. Do you have any predictions or suggestions on what the Democratic Party should do?
I think those are very good candidates. Bill Nelson is one of my closest personal friends. We were colleagues for a long time. I think he has served the state extremely well. He’s also a very good candidate, so I don’t have a lot of advice to give to Bill Nelson. Just keep doing what you are doing.
The best way for an incumbent to get re-elected is to do a good job while you’re in office, and he certainly has done that.
I think in 2008, a key to President Obama’s success, including here in Florida, was the fact that he was able to get out voters who traditionally have not voted much.
In 1972, which was the first year that all Americans 18 and older had the constitutional right to vote, about 50 percent of the voters under the age of 25 did vote. By the year 2000, it had dropped to around 35 percent. Obama was able to reverse that decline.
The question is, was that just a one-year shot, or does it reflect the fact that there is greater interest in younger Americans’ participation? That’s what a lot of the campaign is going to be focused on, encouraging those people to do in ‘12 what they did in ‘08.
Do you have any observations or comments on the recent election in Jacksonville, which made history with the election of Mayor-elect Alvin Brown?
I’m a good friend of Alvin’s. We worked together when he was in Washington, and I helped him in his campaign. I think it’s very important that a person who’s not rigidly either the far right or the far left is the executive leader of Jacksonville. Most difficult decisions in government don’t lend themselves to an ideological decision. It’s very pragmatic.
Just the issue of the library here, of its importance to the community, what are some things that need to be done to make it more accessible to the communit?. Those aren’t ideological questions, those are pragmatic, and I think Alvin will bring that sort of approach to his administration.
What’s next for you?
I’ve had 38 wonderful years in elective office, but that’s not going to be on my horizon. I have been involved in several commissions, most recently co-chairing the oil spill commission, and if there are some more opportunities like that, I would be very interested.
I say in the book, through a person who some think is my alter ego, Sen. John Billington, that I felt that I didn’t spend enough time with my own children, because they were growing up at the height of my political career.
I’m not going to make the same mistake with my grandchildren. So that’s one of the things I’m going to continue to spend time on.
How is your family?
They’re great. We have 11 grandchildren. Two of them are in college, and a third will be a freshman at the University of Florida this year. So they’re getting to be big people.
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