[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 73 (Tuesday, June 9, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5779-S5781]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       IN MEMORY OF TERRY SANFORD

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, on April 18, 1998, this body mourned the 
passing of a distinguished and beloved former colleague, Terry Sanford 
of North Carolina. In the days following Terry's death, I heard many 
moving tributes to him on this floor. And at his funeral in North 
Carolina, I heard eloquent eulogies and heartfelt testimonials to his 
greatness. But I have heard no tribute to Terry Sanford more sincere or 
beautiful than that of Joel Fleishman, who was a good friend to Terry 
Sanford and whom I, too, am proud to claim as a friend. Mr. Fleishman's 
tribute evokes the qualities that made Terry Sanford a great

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statesman and educator, and it reminds us all of the importance of 
principled public servants to a republic such as ours.
  At this time, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Mr. 
Fleishman's tribute to Terry Sanford be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the tribute was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                             Terry Sanford

       Dear Margaret Rose, Terry, Betsee, and all members of Terry 
     Sanford's family. Be comforted by the many, many years of 
     exuberantly joyful memories which all of you shared with 
     Terry, as well as by the grandeur of his astonishing gifts to 
     society, all of which will forever bring credit to the 
     Sanford name. One of the greatest privileges of my life, and 
     certainly the greatest shaper of my career, have been my work 
     and friendship with him over 47 years, as well as the warm 
     friendship which you all have given me so generously.
       Seeing you there, Terry, Jr., brings to mind one of the 
     hallmarks of his way of doing everything. His original sense 
     of humor was no secret to anyone. One time he was meeting 
     with some out-of-state, indeed Northern corporate CEOs in the 
     Governor's office, trying to get them to invest in North 
     Carolina, and he had a call from you, which went, he told me 
     later, as follows: ``Dad, I caught that big turtle that's 
     been giving me trouble in the pond. What should I do with 
     him?'' Deliberately without explaining the question to those 
     in his office, Terry responded to you, ``Well, son, shoot `im 
     and throw `im in the back of the truck. We'll decide what to 
     do with him later.'' The folks in Terry's office turned pale, 
     afraid to ask for fear of what they might learn, and even 
     more than a bit anxious than before about doing business with 
     this good old boy turned New South politician.
       Over the past 20 years I had occasion to introduce Terry 
     Sanford hundreds of times, mainly when we were jointly 
     trying, alas, to raise money for Duke. I loved regaling the 
     audiences with his achievements and watching him first blush 
     and then riposte with that deadpan, twinkle-in-the-eye humor. 
     He would surely blush and fire back ripostes at what all of 
     us are saying about him today.
       Terry Sanford was a great-spirited, great-souled man, a man 
     of passion, a man with a conscience that had real bite, a 
     man, above all, who cared about people (really cared!), a man 
     of loyalty. But most of all, Terry Sanford was a creative 
     genius, but a thoroughly practical one, who transformed 
     everything he touched into something finer, better, worthier 
     and more useful to the world. If I had to call him by any 
     single phrase, it would be ``the great transformer.''
       At a time when most Southern governors were engaged in 
     shameless, vicious race-baiting--and Fritz Hollings of South 
     Carolina and Leroy Collins of Georgia were notorious 
     exceptions to that pattern--Terry Sanford staked his 
     political career on achieving equality of opportunity without 
     regard to race, and thereby transformed public discourse in 
     North Carolina.
       At a time when, as he entered the governorship, North 
     Carolina ranked next to last--49th--among the states in per 
     capita income, Terry Sanford sparked the transformation of 
     its economy by giving life, energy and momentum to Luther 
     Hodges' and Romeo Guest's dream of a high tech research park 
     as the magnet and engine of North Carolina's technological 
     transformation. He got Jack Kennedy to give the Research 
     Triangle Park the only one of the National Institutes of 
     Health ever located outside of Washington and helped persuade 
     IBM to be the first anchor tenant of the Park. What Sanford 
     got rolling, governors Dan Moore, Bob Scott, Jim Holshouser, 
     Jim Hunt and Jim Martin took to ever greater heights, and now 
     North Carolina is in 32nd place destined to go even higher. 
     Think what moving from 49th to 32nd means for all the people 
     of North Carolina, and what it tells us about the power of 
     enlighted, dedicated political leadership to do good in 
     partnership with non-governmental entities.
       At a time when government was thought by most people to be 
     capable of solving, and indeed to have a monopoly on solving, 
     all public policy problems by itself, Terry Sanford 
     energetically created policy-shaping and problem-solving 
     partnerships among government at all levels, not-for-profit 
     organizations, foundations and for-profit corporations, 
     pioneering in what is now the fashion--trisectoral public 
     problem-solving. Miracle of miracles, he even began the 
     practice of systematically drawing so-called ``pointy-
     headed'' academics from their ivory towers into policymaking 
     and administration in government.
       At a time when Duke University was barely known outside the 
     South, Terry Sanford conceived and launched a plan to let the 
     whole world in on the secret that Duke was one of the best 
     universities in the world. The market test of his success is 
     that the number of applications for undergraduate admission 
     over the fifteen years of his presidency doubled--from 3.7 to 
     8 per place in the class, and went ever further later as a 
     result of the momentum he established, while soaring in 
     quality as well. [He loved to tell the story of President 
     Few's effort to recruit William James' student and fellow 
     Harvard colleague, Professor MacDougald, to the Duke faculty 
     as the first professor of psychology. Professor MacDougald 
     was on sabbatical at Oxford, and Few cabled him the offer, 
     which was financially very attractive, inviting him to join 
     the faculty of Duke in Durham, N.C. He instantly wired back, 
     saying ``I accept; where's Durham?'' Thanks in part to Terry 
     Sanford, everyone now knows where Durham is.]
       The great transformer!
       What was his secret? What were the qualities of mind and 
     character that enabled him to achieve these feats?
       First of all, he genuinely cared about people, about 
     individuals. He was not someone who loved ``the people'' in 
     principle, while disdaining them as individuals.
       Secondly, he never let things get to him. Over 47 years I 
     knew him to get angry only once. That was when a state 
     trooper on duty at the Governor's Mansion inadvertently let 
     it be known to a reporter that--get this--alcohol was in fact 
     being served at the Mansion, and Terry was furious that his 
     mother might discover that he had an occasional sip!
       He stuck to his word. Unlike so many persons who occupy 
     political roles, whether as public office-holders or 
     university presidents, Terry Sanford did not change his mind 
     or his tune depending on what those with whom he was talking 
     wanted to hear, or according to the views of those with whom 
     he had most recently met. If he made a decision and committed 
     himself to you, you could count on the fact that he would 
     stick to it, and not be persuaded out of it by the next 
     person with whom he talked.
       How could he do that? Because he had real values, bedrock 
     values. There was a there there!
       His fidelity was the inevitable result of the fact that 
     what motivated him in all his actions were the values to 
     which he wholeheartedly committed his life and his entire 
     career. Those values were the lyrical melody his soul sang 
     from his birth to his death on Saturday last, a song which 
     stirred the hearts and minds of the millions who admired, 
     voted for, and followed him in the audacious goals he set for 
     us all. It was those values that led him to do all that he 
     did, and not some ego need to be loved or admired or be 
     constantly in the spotlight.
       And he served those values with the most amazing energy 
     I've ever encountered in anyone. He was literally 
     indefatigable! It was not only boundless but it was never-
     ending, showing itself even as he fought the last battle of 
     his life against cancer.
       One is forced to ask, ``Why?'' Why did Terry Sanford pour 
     so much of himself into his quest for a better society? 
     Anyone must wonder why a rational human being would sacrifice 
     so much of their own life for others. One time, Terry and 
     Bert Bennett were out on the road campaigning with Margaret 
     Rose, and they were all being subjected to the same old cold 
     peas and chicken, and equally tasty rhetoric from local 
     politicians. Margaret Rose was complaining to Bert that 
     Terry was gone from home all the time. Little Terry and 
     Betsee were moaning about missing their father. Bert 
     slipped a note to Terry, which said ``Why do you continue 
     to stay in this business anyway?'' Terry fired back a note 
     with the following words: ``To keep the SOBs out.'' That's 
     a bit more jugular than Edmund Burke's ``All that is 
     required for evil to triumph is for good men to do 
     nothing.''
       Of course, it was more, a lot more than that.
       It was the ideals which drove him. I know of no public 
     figure who has demonstrated such consistent fidelity to his 
     ideals over a lifetime as Terry Sanford did. Most of us 
     change as we grow older, get a little more radical, even 
     conservative perhaps, as the case may be. But his devotion to 
     his ideals didn't waver one whit in the 47 years I knew him. 
     What were those ideals?
       Devotion to democracy, little ``d'' as well as big ``D.'' 
     He always believed from the depth of this being, and always 
     acted on the belief, that the best cure for the ills of 
     democracy is more democracy. He was a relentless, devoted big 
     D Democrat. That is one, as he taught me, whose credo is 
     ``What my dog trees, I'll eat.''
       Devotion to equality of opportunity for all, irrespective 
     of race, religion and gender. His creed has always been that 
     of the Declaration of Independence--``We hold these truths to 
     be self-evident,''--and by ``self-evident'' he really meant 
     self-evident--``that all men''--and women, he would add--
     ``are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator 
     with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, 
     liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'' [Until Terry Sanford 
     became president of Duke University, there was a quota on the 
     admission of Jewish students. The day he became president, it 
     was removed.]
       Devotion to education as the most important means of 
     society's continuing renewal, and of the individual's 
     personal growth and ladder to a better life. Of all the 
     things he was called--and he reveled in the fact that he was 
     called many things good and bad--he was proudest of being 
     called ``the education governor''--not just of North 
     Carolina, although that would surely have satisfied him--but 
     the education governor of the entire United States, probably 
     the first governor of any state in the nation in history to 
     be widely so called. And I'll bet, too, that he is just as 
     proud to have inspired Jim Hunt to aspire to, and indeed to 
     earn, the same proud title.
       Devotion to the development of leadership--to bringing 
     along young people and nurturing them--as society's single 
     best

[[Page S5781]]

     means of ensuring the future flow of wise, energetic and 
     dedicated leaders required to solve the problems of 
     succeeding generations.
       As all of us are now gathered in the Duke Chapel to 
     celebrate Terry Sanford's life, think how those four great 
     ideals--devotion to democracy, to equality, to education, and 
     to leadership development--that animated his career have come 
     to combine in the mission of the nearby building and 
     Institute that are honored by his name, and how they bear 
     witness to his devotion to them. A more perfect match could 
     hardly be imagined!
       In an age when many politicians seem drawn to seek office, 
     like moths to a flame, primarily by a desire for power, fame, 
     and the spotlight, but who use the public interest as a mask 
     and justification for their ambition, Terry Sanford was 
     exactly the opposite. Public service was his end and public 
     office was the means of his service. He was obsessed by 
     fixing what is wrong, making things better, serving the 
     public, and he sought public office as the most effective 
     means for someone with his mix of talents to do so. His 
     ambition was redeemed because it was always yoked to his 
     over-riding, all-consuming, relentless quest for benefiting 
     the public. He was driven by his vision of making things 
     better for all North Carolinians, especially the powerless, 
     the less well off, those who are discriminated against. I 
     said he had a conscience with real bite. He not only preached 
     doing right, but he did right. When the business folks at 
     Duke proposed moving payday for the hourly workers from 
     Friday to Monday, someone wrote and delivered to Terry a note 
     with two verses from Deuteronomy (24:14, 15): ``Thou shalt 
     not wrong a day-laborer who is poor and needy whether of they 
     brethren or of the strangers that are in thy land, in thy 
     gates. On his day shalt thou give him his wage and let not 
     the sun go down on it, for he is poor and setteth his heart 
     upon it; let him not call unto God against thee, and a sin 
     would be upon thee.'' He instantly reversed the change.
       In another extraordinary respect, Terry Sanford was unique 
     among all those of my acquaintance. He had an unquenchable 
     thirst for ideas from everyone, which led him to seek out 
     persons of all stations and conditions of life with whom to 
     consult about everything that he cared about. His life was a 
     never-ending pursuit of the best ideas from as a wide a 
     circle as possible about how to solve the problems of concern 
     to him, or to them. Unlike so many public figures and 
     university presidents, he was resolutely determined to resist 
     becoming the captive of his long-time friends, his campaign 
     workers, his kitchen cabinet. It goes without saying that he 
     was always loyal to them, and that they had access to him. 
     But that inner circle was perpetually refreshed over the 
     years by hundreds of others whom he sought out and drew in 
     on a continuing basis. He had the most remarkable thirst 
     for new ideas of any man of action I've ever known. That 
     characteristic had to be one of the keys to the many 
     significant innovations for which he is so justly credited 
     all across North Carolina and at Duke University. Honesty 
     requires me to say that not all of the ideas he picked up 
     and decided to run with seemed to me in prospect likely to 
     succeed, but I am struck in retrospect by how many of them 
     did.
       Another key is the way he recruited, empowered and defended 
     associates. Once he hired or otherwise engaged someone, he 
     turned them loose to carry out their visions, and he backed 
     them to the hilt! If you worked for Terry Sanford, you never 
     had to worry about whether the would come to your aid when 
     you needed it, or protect you from those who opposed what you 
     were trying to do. He simply empowered you with the authority 
     of his office, and he was loyal to you.
       At least most of the time.
       My first assignment the day after the victorious second 
     primary, was to drive Margaret Rose home to Fayetteville. Tom 
     Lambeth handed me a set of car keys, and said take the blue 
     Oldsmobile in the parking lot of the Carolina Hotel, which 
     was campaign headquarters. So Margaret Rose and I went out to 
     the car, got in and started to drive away, when she said, 
     ``Why don't we drive around the Mansion just to take a look 
     at where we'll be living next January.'' Of course there was 
     still the general election to win, but Republicans weren't as 
     powerful then as now. So we drove north on MacDowell Street 
     and went all the way around the mansion and then headed south 
     on Wilmington Street. We hadn't gotten two blocks past the 
     Mansion when I heard police sirens behind us. To say that I 
     was petrified is the understatement of the decade. I could 
     see the screaming headlines in the N&O the next morning: 
     ``Gubernatorial Nominee's Wife and Sanford Aide arrested for 
     speeding.'' I was baffled because I knew we had not been 
     speeding. It was worse. The policeman told me that the car 
     Mrs. Sanford and I were in had just been reported as stolen. 
     So I sheepishly got out of the car, and asked the police to 
     let me make my one phone call. I wasn't about to tell them to 
     whom. I called Tom, who told Terry, whose immediate response 
     was ``Get Margaret Rose out of there as fast as possible, and 
     forget about Joel!'' It turned out that there were two blue 
     Oldsmobiles in the lot, one of which belonged to the hotel 
     manager, and miraculously the Sanford car keys fit his, too. 
     We all had a great laugh when it was over.
       Our bodies exist, I believe, only so that they can serve as 
     instruments of the spirit that will animate us all if we but 
     allow it to do so. Our bodies are but the means whereby we 
     acquire the materiality to accomplish our visions in the 
     world of the material. The spirit that animated Terry 
     Sanford's body is the same spirit that found expression in 
     the lives and bodies of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, 
     Abraham Lincoln, Charles Brantley Aycock, Franklin Roosevelt 
     and John F. Kennedy, and although their bodies are long 
     buried, their spirits live on in us. And it was the same 
     spirit, too, that radiated through the body of Frank Porter 
     Graham, in whose U.S. Senate campaign in 1950 Terry Sanford 
     played his first active political role. The only time Tom 
     Lambeth tells me that he ever saw Terry Sanford come close to 
     breaking into tears was when he spoke about what Frank 
     Graham's life had meant to him. Frank Graham's vision was 
     Terry Sanford's vision, too: ``In this land of liberty, for 
     which our fathers died, and for which we would live, work, 
     and give our all, may America become a country in which the 
     highest and the lowest and all the people equally together 
     have the freedom to struggle for the higher freedom of truth, 
     goodness and beauty; where democracy is without vulgarity, 
     excellence is without arrogance, the answer to error is not 
     terror and the response to a difference in color, race, 
     religion, ideas, and economic condition is not 
     discrimination, exploitation, or intimidation.''
       It is not the body that we are here to bury that is Terry 
     Sanford; what we bury is but the envelope. The real Terry 
     Sanford can never be buried; that is the spirit, vision, 
     energy and compassion that animated that body for eighty 
     years. THAT is the Terry Sanford whom we honor and love, and 
     that can never be interred in the earth from which the body 
     came. As long as his spirit, vision, energy, and compassion 
     animate us, all of us whose lives he stirred to ``burgeon out 
     all that is within us,'' in Governor Aycock's words, the 
     values for which we love and honor Terry Sanford will go on 
     leading us to serve the goals to which he helped inspire us 
     to dedicate our lives.

                          ____________________