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Senator ARLEN SPECTER (Republican, Pennsylvania; Author, "Passion for
Truth"): In 1979, a doctor told me I had Amyotrophic Lateral
Sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's disease, and it's fatal--couple years perhaps.
And by the spring when four or five months passed and no further
symptoms developed, I knew it was wrong. And on June 11th of 1993, I
had some slight pains in the side of my head and I took an MRI and the
doctor looked at the films and told me I had a brain tumor that would
kill me in three to six weeks.

And an interesting conversation afterward--I told him that that
afternoon my wife, Joan, was coming to Washington. We were going to
go to Little Washington nearby for the weekend to celebrate our 40th
wedding anniversary Monday, the 14th of June. And he looked at me and
said, `Well, go and have a good time.' And when he said that after
telling me I had three to six weeks to live, I said, `This guy is not
my doctor.' I said, `Give me the films. I'm going to Philadelphia.'
where I consulted with other doctors. And the following Monday
morning I had brain surgery and it was benign.

LAMB: What was your first reaction the first time they told you you
had Lou Gehrig's disease?

Sen. SPECTER: Shock, terror. Went to the medical library and looked
it up and saw what the prognosis was for Lou Gehrig's disease. And I
could look at my hand and I knew it was shaking. I knew there was
something wrong with my nervous system. Once they told me I had Lou
Gehrig's disease and--I held my breath every day for several months.
And when several months passed and no symptoms developed, the doctor
then told me that he'd made a mistake and that the
electroencephalogram I'd had was really consistent with having a mild
case of polio as a child.

And in my book I talk about that and give some advice to doctors that
they ought to never tell anything which is not true, but they really
ought not to present the worst case scenario without saying, `This
could be serious, it could be X, it could be Lou Gehrig's disease, it
could be a malignant brain tumor, but we don't know for sure and we
have to check it out and it'll take some time--or an analysis of the
tumor once it's removed to really tell you the facts,' that doctors
really need a little bit basic instruction of how their patients
respond to that kind of devastating news in absolute terms.

LAMB: What happened to the cancer diagnosis?

Sen. SPECTER: The cancer diagnosis--they operated, took the brain
out, the malignant--the mina--mentianoma, and they dissected it and
found out that it was benign.

LAMB: And then you had to go back again.

Sen. SPECTER: Well, then it grew back a little, which is common in
about 15 percent of the cases. And on this occasion, I undertook what
is called a gamma knife, which is a--a procedure where they focus
beams on it and--and knock it out. And one of my tough
considerations, Brian, is the campaign. I was on the verge of running
for re-election. So it was both a medical and a--a political issue.
And I checked into the hospital in Pittsburgh early in the morning,
about 5:30, and released a very carefully-prepared statement
mid-morning after the procedure was over and then held a news
conference. And one of the reporters said I looked like I was coming
from a picnic. But to the extent you can put on a happy face, it's a
good thing to do. And I could put on a happy face.

LAMB: What's your health like now?

Sen. SPECTER: Excellent. Played squash this morning. Play every
day and feel very good.

LAMB: And you'll soon be 71 years old?

Sen. SPECTER: Well, I'm not sure about that, Brian. That's what my
mother told me. A friend of mine, Tom Coon, the other day said to me,
`Arlen, have you considered running for president again?' And I said,
`Tom, I looked at the almanac of elected officials and I noted by
birth date, February 12, 1930.' And he said to me, `Well, why let a
little thing like that bother you? It happened so long ago.'

LAMB: Speaking of squash, there's one story in the book about Mr.
Mubarak, the leader of--of Egypt, and you in squash. What was that?

Sen. SPECTER: Well, the first time I met President Mubarak was in
the spring of 1982. He came after Anwar Sadat had been assassinated.
And I made it a point to travel very extensively in the Mideast and to
get to know Mideastern leaders like Assad and Arafat and Shamir and
Barak and Netanyahu. And I was very interested in President Mubarak.
So--I'd heard that he played squash, so I approached him.

He was seated between Howard Baker, who was then the majority leader,
and Chuck Percy, who was the chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee. And I said, `Mr. President, do you play squash?' He said,
`Yes, yes.' He's a very garrulous fella. And I said, `Have you had a
game today?' And he said, `No, no.' I said, `Well, how about a game?'
And he said, `Well, if I win, do I get an extra $100 million?' And
we've made many squash dates in the--the intervening years, and I've
gotten to know him very well. But when I arrive, he'll never play.
And I suspect that President Mubarak may wa--not want to risk losing
to someone who's Jewish. That's a suspicion. But I've never had the
game, and he's given up squash recently. He's a--a year older than I
am.

LAMB: Speaking of being Jewish, you have a story about Jack Ruby. I
know we're jumping right into the middle of the Kennedy thing, but the
story when he insisted that there be a Jew in the room. What was
that? What were the circumstances? And who was Jack Ruby?

Sen. SPECTER: Well, I went to Dallas with Chief Justice Warren to
take Ruby's testimony among another--a number of things. I was one of
the young lawyers on the Warren Commission staff. After I'd won a big
case in Philadelphia prosecuting teamsters, Attorney General Bobby
Kennedy wanted me to join the prosecution team against Hoffa, and I
declined. But six months later when President Kennedy was
assassinated, I was asked to be one of the young lawyers where I
developed the single bullet theory. But...

LAMB: How old were you at the time?

Sen. SPECTER: I was 33 when I joined. And we went to Dallas, and
they wanted to keep as small a group as possible, and I was odd man
out. I was the only fellow excluded. So I was sitting watching a
baseball game in the sheriff's office in the Dallas jail. San
Francisco was playing Philadelphia that day. Chief Justice Warren,
who was a Giant fan, and I had speculated about the game coming down.

But at any rate, part way through the proceeding, Elmer Moore of the
Secret Service came to me and said, `Arlen, they want somebody Jewish
in the room. Jack Ruby wants somebody who's Jewish.' So I walked in
and sat down, and about as far as I am from you. And there was a
court reporter taking notes. And Jack Ruby looks over at me and he
goes (mouths words). And I sit there, he was mouthing the words, `Are
you a Yid?' Yid is a word for Jew. And I sat there. I'd been chief
of the appeals division of the DA's office. And I know--when they
type it up what it's going to look like in print. So I said nothing.
He leaned over again. (Mouths words). And I sat there. Again, `Are
you a Yid?' And fortuitously, the court reporter ran out of paper.

And Jack Ruby called the chief justice and me over into a corner. And
he said, `Chief, you got to get me to Washington.' And Warren said,
`Well, I can't do that.' Earl Warren, for all of his greatness, did
not respond well when something came up on the--on the spur of the
moment. And at any rate, Joe Ball walked by, one of the senior
lawyers, and he started to listen in. He thought, `If Arlen Specter
could be in this, half my age, why--why am I not there?' And Ruby
looked over at Ball and said, `Are you Jewish?' And Ball said, `No.'
He said, `Get out of here.' And--and Ball did what he was--what he was
told. But Ruby said to Warren--and I go into great detail on this in
the book--he said, `They're cutting off the arms and legs of Jewish
children in Albuquerque and El Paso and you've got to get me to--to
Washington.'

And about this time, the court reporter had her notes back in and Ruby
went back and sat down. And seated in the back of the room were
Gerald Ford, then a congressman and a member of the commission--of
course, later president--and Joe Tonahill, Jack Ruby's lawyer.
Tonahill did such a great job. And Tonahill handed Gerald Ford a
note. And Ruby saw this happen. And Ruby said, `I want that note.'
And it's hard to picture this. I describe it in some detail in the
book, but Ruby was in charge. He just nominated the whole proceeding.
When--when it started, before Warren could call the meeting to
order--and I read this in the notes of testimony 'cause I was watching
a baseball game, as I say, involuntarily watching the game instead of
there--Ruby said, `How do you know I'm telling the truth? I want a
lie detector test.' And Warren, as I said, doesn't--didn't respond
well to instantaneous instances. `Well, Mr. Ruby, if you want a lie
detector test, of course, we'll give you a lie detector test.' And
later, I went back as the commission representative when his lie
detector test was taken.

But at any rate, coming back to this note being passed, Ruby demanded
it. And Gerald Ford jumped up, walked up, did what he was told. He
handed the note to Ruby. So Ruby's reading this note--or trying to
read it--and he can't read it. So the chief justice of the United
States takes off his glasses and hands them to Jack Ruby and Jack Ruby
puts on the chief's glasses and he reads the note. And the note says,
`You see, I told you he's crazy.' And Ruby throws the note down. He
doesn't care anything about that. And the--and the proceeding went
on.

But later when we took his polygraph, he denied having any connection
with Oswald or being involved in a conspiracy. Said it was a very
emotional thing when he read about the assassination and knew that
Mrs. Kennedy would have to come back to testify. He knew the police
because he ran a strip joint. And he brought them sandwiches and
coffee, ingratiated himself because he didn't want to be arrested.
And that morning he walked into the jailhouse and everybody knew him.
And on national television, as so many people know, he pulled out a
revolver and put it in Oswald's stomach and--and--and murdered him.
And the lie detector examiner, who went with me to take his polygraph,
thought that Ruby was telling the truth when he denied any involvement
in the assassination. But when the report got to J. Edgar Hoover, he
decided that it was not valid because of Ruby's mental state.

My own evaluation was that although Ruby was delusional at times that
at other times, like his polygraph, he knew what he was saying. And
on our trip back, the polygraph examiner, Bell Herndon, told me that
he thought Ruby knew what he was doing, was telling the truth. But
when Hoover got ahold of it, Hoover ran the show and said it wasn't to
be used. And what I did in writing up the report was to put the whole
section in and put the tapes in so that they can be examined
historically and history, not Hoover, can be the judge.

LAMB: When did you first see the autopsy photos of John Kennedy?

Sen. SPECTER: I first saw them in 1999 when I made a special trip to
the archives. I was not permitted to see them, nor was anybody on the
staff or the commission with the possible exception of the chief
justice. And I was very unhappy about that and wrote a very strong
memorandum to Lee Rankin, who was the general counsel, complaining
about it, that although we had the autopsy surgeon's testimony, that
the photos and the X-rays were corroborative evidence and we should
have had them. And I thought the commission would be subject to a lot
of justifiable criticism.

As you know, there's been enormous controversy about what the
commission has done. And I--I could sense at the time that when we
had closed hearings and the people did not know what we were doing,
that we had to be as meticulous as we could be. And one of the
reasons that I wrote this book--I've been urged to do so for a long
time--to recount what we did on the Warren Commission.

Since coming to the Senate and saying the tremendous distrust in
government and working on cases like Ruby Ridge and the Gulf War
syndrome and having had a personal experience as a child when my
father was denied his bonus in World War I, veterans marched on
Washington. And today there's a demonstration on the Mall, they roll
out the red carpet. When the veterans marched on Washington in 1932,
they brought out the cavalry with Major Patton and drawn sabres and
chased them down Pennsylvania Avenue, and killed some of them. One of
the blackest days in American history. And as I say in the book, I've
been on my way to Washington ever since to get my father's bonus.
Still haven't gotten it, so I'm still here.

LAMB: How many members were there on the Warren Commission?

Sen. SPECTER: There were seven.

LAMB: Who were some of them?

Sen. SPECTER: The seven members were: John McCloy, former head of
the international bank--World Bank; Allen Dulles, former head of the
CIA; Richard Russell, United States senator; John Sherman Cooper, a
United States senator; Hale Boggs, majority leader in the House; and
Gerald--and Gerald Ford.

But co--coming back to the photos and X-rays for just a minute, Brian,
I thought we should--we should look at them. And there was grown up
tremendous distrust of the commission. And in writing this book--and
I go into great detail as to how I developed the single bullet theory
and how the lawyers came from all over the country, Des Moines and
Chicago and Cleveland and Philadelphia, so they didn't go to
bureaucrats in Washington, so that we avoided the possible charge of
a--of a--of a cover-up. And in writing this book trying to tell
people in America that there are ways of dealing with the government
and that the free fall we've seen in voting and the tremendous
skepticism; and we're seeing it now in the wake of President Bush's
election over Vice President Gore and the cynicism about the Supreme
Court decision and what's happening with the Ashcroft nomination and
what's happening with the Planned Parenthood money overseas. These
are issues which we need to deal with to restore public confidence.

LAMB: But go back to the autopsy just for a moment. How did--how did
you get to see the pictures and had anybody else seen them besides
you?

Sen. SPECTER: Well, they were examined in 1971 by a group of
forensic pathologists. And eight forensic pathologists, as I recall,
looked at them and they all confirmed what the Warren Commission had
found, what the autopsy surgeons had testified to with a possible
exception of Dr. Cyril Wecht of--of--of Pittsburgh. But I had to ask
special permission to--to see them. And if you have a good reason,
you can see them. But they're not--they're not available generally.
And--and they're--they're--they're--they're gory, to be very blunt
about them.

LAMB: What do you see?

Sen. SPECTER: What do I see?

LAMB: Yeah. What did you see?

Sen. SPECTER: Well, I saw pictures of President Kennedy. I saw the
small bullet hole in the back of his head, which was fatal, blew out
the top of his head. And I saw the top of his head, thick head of
hair, handsome young man. And I saw the bullet hole in the back of
his neck, the bullet which hit him first and then went through
Connally. And as I say in the book, I think that Chief Justice Warren
did not want the pictures shown because they might get into the public
domain, so much does, as you know. And people would not have the
picture of Kennedy as a handsome, vibrant young man, but instead with
significant wounds and part of his--part of his head shot off. It--it
was rumored that Warren did look at the photos and X-rays. But that
was no substitute for having the staff look at them and have them
examined and have testimony and have the other commissioners see them.

LAMB: Where was the autopsy done?

Sen. SPECTER: Bethesda, Maryland.

LAMB: Was it controversial?

Sen. SPECTER: Very controversial.

LAMB: Why?

Sen. SPECTER: Well, because the autopsy surgeon, Dr. James Humes
burned his notes. And inexplicable that the notes would be burned on
such a major event. And when I wrote this book, Brian, in
collaboration with Charles Robbins, who was my director of
communications, he and I went back and reinterviewed a lot of people
to refresh my recollection and to get different views. I talked to
the doctors in Parkland. I talked to lawyers who were on the Anita
Hill and Clarence Thomas case. And one of the interviews we had was
with Dr. Humes and Dr. Boswell. They came to the Senate dining room
for lunch about three years ago and we sat and talked. And Charlie
wanted to use his tape recorder and I said, `No, no tape recorder,
that's inhibiting.' Not as much as the television camera, but it's
inhibiting. And Dr. Humes told us a story. And then when Charlie
was walking into the train station, he was smarter than I, which is
not too hard to do. He--he asked him if he minded repeating story for
the tape recorder.

And the story was that Dr. Humes had been on a site where they had a
recreation of President Lincoln's office. And on the desk there was a
doily which they used to cover furniture and the representation was
made, falsely, that some of the staining on the doily was blood from
the Lincoln assassination. And it turned out to be some sort of hair
tonic. But Dr. Humes was so offended by that that when he took his
notes--and an autopsy surgeon writes his notes during the course of
the autopsy--there was a lot of blood on the notes. And he didn't
want anybody seeing those notes and from the bad reaction he had to
the Lincoln situation, he burned his notes.

But even as I recite what--what Dr. James Humes told me, I know many
people are going to be doubting it. And I go into great detail in the
book because there has been a lot written about Humes having burned
his notes, and people will be speculating about that and the whole
Kennedy assassination for years. It's been more than 100 years since
President Lincoln was shot--136 years, and there's still conspiracy
stories. And they'll be talking about President Kennedy for who knows
how long, centuries.

LAMB: Who started calling you Boozy Boy?

Sen. SPECTER: My Aunt Rose.

LAMB: Why?

Sen. SPECTER: Well, a friend of the family, the Greenbergs, had a
son born about 16 months ahead of me. And Al Jolson was popular, and
they called him Sonny Boy. And they wanted to have a similar name and
how they got Boozy Boy, I don't know. But that's what my aunt calls
me when I telephone her. She's 88 and I talk to her all the time.
She's sort of become my surrogate mother.

LAMB: What are some of the things she said to you in your political
life that you remember?

Sen. SPECTER: Well, she called me up when the 1986 tax bill was
being considered for a single rate and she said, `Boozy Boy, why do I
have to pay the same rate as millionaires?'

And I said, `Rosie, that's a good question. I'm going to ask Senator
Bradley.'

So the next day I went down to the Senate floor. Bill Bradley, who's
the chief sponsor, was orating about the bill. One of the great
things about the Senate is that until C-SPAN started to cover it--and,
Brian, I thank you for that--there's nobody listening. Bradley was
there and there was one senator presiding, and I walked in and I said,
`Would the senator from New Jersey yield for a question?'

He said, `Yeah.'

I said, `I talked to my Aunt Rose last night. Senator Bradley, she
wants to know why she has to pay the same ri--rate as millionaires.'
He didn't have a good answer for me. And I put--I sent Rosie a copy
of the transcript.

And then she called me the night before I questioned Professor Anita
Hill, and she said, `I hear on television you're going to question
Professor Hill.'

And I said, `Well, that's right, Rosie.'

And she says, `Don't do it.'

And I said, `Well, I can't exactly not do it. I'm on the committee,
and it's a responsibility.'

She says, `You should not do that.'

They say Peoria is a microcosm of America. Rosie is a microcosm of
anywhere. She lives in Wichita. I won't tell you her age because
she's going to watch this show. And she has great instincts. And I
talk to her with some frequency about the impeachment of President
Clinton and about the Gore-Bush race, and she has wonderful insights.

LAMB: You suggest in your book that your sister, Hilda, should have
been prime minister of Israel?

Sen. SPECTER: That's right. Hilda was way ahead of her time. She
graduated from Wichita University in 1942, and she got a scholarship
to study in Syracuse kind of for a master's degree in--in government.
And she had met a handsome young artillery officer, Arthur
Morgenstern, who had come from Brooklyn to Ft. Riley. There're not
very many Jewish boys in Wichita. The people in Wichita, the young
women, are always complaining, but he came to Yom Kippur, Rosh
Hashanah services and they fell in love, and he was shipping out to
the South Pacific, so she took a transcontinental train and met him in
San Francisco and they were married and have lived happily ever after
for, I guess, about 57 years.

And she's a brilliant woman, and she lives in--in Israel. And on the
analogy of Golda Meir, who was born in Milwaukee, became prime
minister of--of Israel, I thought Hilda would make a great prime
minister. And as I s--tell in the book, it's a fairly well-kept
secret but for more than a year I tried for the Republican nomination
for the presidency in 1996. I knew it was a steep uphill fight given
my views, pro-choice and for the Department of Education. I thought
it'd be great if Hilda were prime minister of Israel and I was
president of the United States.

LAMB: Your dad died in Israel.

Sen. SPECTER: A little--a little wishful thinking, Brian, but...

LAMB: Your dad died in Israel.

Sen. SPECTER: My dad passed away in Israel.

LAMB: You have to bury a Jew within 24 hours?

Sen. SPECTER: Yep.

LAMB: So you all had to--I mean, do you account--recount it here; did
you get there in time to--to bury him.

Sen. SPECTER: Sure. Sure. My father, who was an immigrant from
Ukraine, literally walked across Europe, barely a ruble in his pocket.
He did not want to go to Siberia under the czar's heel. This was
1911. And he came to the United States, and he didn't know that he
had a round-trip ticket to France, not to Paris or the Follie Bregere,
but to the Argonne forest, where he was seriously wounded in action.
And it was his experience where the government broke its promise to
pay him the bonus, which I told you about. And he had a lifelong
ambition to--odd as it may s--sound, to be buried in Israel. And in
October of 1964 he and my mother made a trip to Israel. And when he
got there, he was so excited that he exerted himself and had a serious
heart attack, was in the hospital for 10 days and unfortunately died.
And it was a very tough telephone call I got from my mother on
November 2nd at about 5:30 in the morning--it was 12:30 in
Israel--telling me what had happened. And my sister Hilda lived in
Denver, and I was able to keep the office open--or we were--kept the
office open to get her a passport, and we caught a plane flight that
night and arrived in time to bury my father and--and bring my mother
home.

LAMB: What year did you change from being a Democrat to a Republican?

Sen. SPECTER: 1965. I had--I had been interested in being district
attorney of Philadelphia. And Philadelphia was a very corrupt city.
And the chairman of the Democratic Party said, `We don't want a young
Tom Dewey in the DA's office.' I had just finished investigating
magistrates, the corrupt minor judiciary of Philadelphia, where they
extracted bribes from people to get discharged, and they went after
gays. They had a theater called the Family Theater on the East Market
Street where gays assembled, and the vice squad would go and arrest
them and take them before magistrates, who would extort large sums of
money to--to discharge them or then, if they didn't pay off, to hold
them. And I had convicted quite a number of magistrates in this--in
this probe, and the head of the Democratic Party didn't like that
because these were a lot of very powerful political leaders.

And the Republican leader, Bill Meehan, came to me and asked me if I'd
consider running for district attorney on the Republican ticket. And
the nomination wasn't worth a whole lot because, the year before,
Lyndon Johnson had beaten Goldwater in Philadelphia by 640,000 to
200,000, or a 440,000 majority. But I thought it over and I
considered DA a--really a non-political office, and I--I agreed to run
on the condition that I would not change my registration, that I have
a free hand in selecting assistants. And I was elected DA on the
Republican ticket, sort of a fusion ticket.

And I tell the story in my book about Joe Clark. I go on to see
Senator Clark when I w...

LAMB: A Democrat.

Sen. SPECTER: ...a Democrat, when I wanted to run in the primary.
S--Senator Clark had written a letter--this goes back to before I took
the nomination on the Republican ticket, and he wrote a letter
suggesting of me and others for his DA. And, of course, that was the
kiss of death. So I went to Senator Clark and I said, `Senator Clark,
I'd be willing to take on a tough primary fight if you'll help me
raise some money.' He said, `Oh, I can't do that.' And I said, `Well,
maybe I'd do it if you'd come out for me and help me cam'--`Well, I
couldn't do that,' he said, `but I'll vote for you.' You know, big
deal. Here's a vote already.

So the Saturday before the election, he called me up, and I was
campaigning around town and I returned the call. And he said, `Arlen,
I think you're going to win this election.' He said, `Don't do
anything about registration until you talk to me.' So I went to see
him after the election, and he said--he said, `You ought to stay a
Democrat.' And I said, `Senator Clark, up until now, I hadn't
decided.' But Bill Meehan and the Republicans: no strings attached,
very comfortable, independent DA's office. And I decided to try to
bring back a second major party in Philadelphia, which I think is very
badly needed. So I changed my registration. I haven't succeeded,
Brian, but I'm still working on it.

LAMB: You, in your book, talk about going back and interviewing
people that you dealt with years ago.

Sec. SPECTER: Right.

LAMB: You--you went to see--or got together with Clarence Thomas.
You got together with Joe Biden, your own colleague, who you see every
day and ride that Metroliner with, I assume, up the--up the road here.
And you took a tape recorder along some of the time. What was the
reaction to Senator Biden when you sat down with a tape recorder?

Sen. SPECTER: He didn't mind. Joe Biden and I are very good friends
and--and very candid, and when I wrote about our conversation--before
I published it, I sent him a copy of it because if there was any
suggestion of confidentiality or reluctance on his part, I wanted him
to see exactly what was happening. And I sent him the first copy of
the page proof, so if he had any questions--and as you're surmising,
what he told me was pretty significant.

The testimony of Professor Hill was extraordinarily difficult for many
points of view, and the greatest difficulty of it was that when I was
questioning her, I had no idea how many women were watching--and some
men, too, but mostly women--who knew that they have been sexually
harassed. And when they felt Professor Hill wasn't believed, it was
almost by transference as if they weren't being believed.

And I almost lost an election, came within an eyelash of losing the
1992 election, not really understanding the dynamics of--of what was
going on. I think that those hearings have produced enormous progress
for women around the world, but especially in America, because no one
understood sexual harassment. The Supreme Court had only defined it
on hostile environment working place in 1984, and since that time,
there have been enormous advances.

But at any rate, when I questioned Professor Hill, there was an
article which appeared in--on the front page of USA Today, which said
that she had been told by Senate staffers that if she came forward,
she would never have to testify because Clarence Thomas would withdraw
rather than face these hearings. And I asked her about it, and she
said she didn't remember. So I asked her the next logical question:
`Well, how can you recount in detail what happened between you and
Justice Thomas a decade ago if you can't remember what happened a few
days ago?' She said, `I just don't remember that.' And she said it
seven times. And I found that very--very disconcerting because the
whole question was one of credibility a--as--as to--as to what had
happened.

She went with Thomas from the Department of Education to EEOC. When
she was in Oklahoma, she invited him to make a speech, she drove him
to the airport, she came back and called him repeatedly. And
ultimately I decided that whatever it was which happened--and who
could tell what happened between a man and a woman 10 years ago? My
wife and I have arguments--some married people do that--and we can't
remember what happened 10 minutes ago. But I decided that on the
totality of the circumstances, whatever happened, it wasn't bad enough
to be a disqualifier in light of the--her going back to him, as I have
said.

But at any rate, seven times she said she didn't remember about the
substance of the USA Today article, and then in the afternoon she came
back and changed her testimony when I concluded that she had not been
telling the truth. And when I talked to Joe Biden, he said, `Arlen',
he said, `I had the same reaction you did; that she wasn't leveling
with the committee. And I sent word to her over the lunch break that
if she persisted in her testimony that I was going to pick up your
line of questioning.' And that afternoon she came back, and I was
asking her about a different subject, and she said, `I was told that
if I came forward, that Thomas would withdraw and I would never
actually have to testify.' And I thought that was an important point
on the question of credibility.

LAMB: What year was the--were those hearings?

Sen. SPECTER: October of 1991.

LAMB: How many days did the second round last? I know we televised
all the first round, but no one was there until the second round when
Anita Hill showed up.

Sen. SPECTER: The second round started on Friday, October the 10th;
there was Saturday the 11th and Sunday afternoon, the 12th, and ended
at 2 AM on Monday morning. The vote had been set by unanimous consent
for the--Tuesday, and I made a motion in open proceedings to delay--to
have further hearings. I thought we had not done nearly enough.

There was testimony from Angela Wright, who told the same story. Her
deposition was taken by staff over the telephone, and I was given the
job of questioning Angela Wright, which was going to occur at 2 AM on
Sunday morning as the sequence evolved. But it was done much, much
too fast. And Senator Danforth, who wrote a book about this, in
retrospect, agreed with me that we needed more time. We were under
heavy, heavy pressure, and I had literally 24 hours to prepare. If
this were a case in court, they'd have five lawyers on it for six
weeks. And the Senate--and this will not come as a surprise to
anybody--did not distinguish itself in those--in those hearings.

LAMB: Who--who asked you to question her?

Sen. SPECTER: I was asked to question her by Senator Thurmond, who
was the chairman of the committee. I--I was actually--we were in
recess on that week, and I was on my way to New York. I was getting
ready for the campaign the next year, going up to see my counselor,
David Garth. And they called me on my car phone, and Strom said, `I
want you to take the lead in questioning Professor Hill.' And then I
said, `OK. I'm on the committee; if you want me to take the lead, I'd
be glad to do that.'

And then I was asked to be Clarence Thomas' advocate, and I write all
about this in the book. And I said, `I'm not going to be his
advocate. I don't represent Thomas. I represent the people of
Pennsylvania.' And I did my very best to be even-handed about it. You
may be interested in this, Brian: When I was on a radio program on
public radio, NPR, in Philadelphia recently, I got six calls right in
a row berating me for Anita Hill. I still get that. Not a week goes
by someone doesn't stop me on the street. It's...

LAMB: Well, let me ask you, though--this is really off the subject;
I'll come back to it in a moment. But you tell a little story in
there about Senator Thurmond and Ralph Yarborough. And were you there
when they had that little...

Sen. SPECTER: No.

LAMB: Wh--when did that happen?

Sen. SPECTER: Well, I think it happened during the civil rights era.

LAMB: Oh, '64, right.

Sen. SPECTER: Yeah.

LAMB: What--what--what was...

Sen. SPECTER: Well, let me--let--let--let me finish Hill, Brian.

LAMB: OK.

Sen. SPECTER: I'll come right back to Yarborough from that.

LAMB: It's just a short story, any way you tell it.

Sen. SPECTER: Well, but the sequence here. But any rate, I was on
the radio; I get a half a dozen calls berating me about Professor
Hill. And I finally said to a caller, `Hey, look, I've gone over the
tapes. There's not one question I asked her which was harsh. And
I'll make those tapes available to you, and we'll watch them
together.' I mean, I've seen them. And I ran an election, and my
opponent ran solely on my questioning, but not once did my opponent in
this campaign in '92 bring on a tape. So I knew I was all right.

So at any rate, I s--put Election Day because it was the day I wer--I
wasn't busy. The guy comes in; he doesn't want to see the tapes.
I--I made that--I made that offer because I was confident. In the
aggregate, it looked terrible; 14 men in white shirts and blue suits
and red ties and Professor Hill on television, isolated. She had a
lot of people behind her, but on TV she was alone. And there were all
sorts of questions asked by others. But when you take them, one at a
time, The New York Times said I was painstakingly polite. But they'll
be arguing about that for a long time.

But back to Yarborough and--and Thurmond. I've gotten to know Strom
Thurmond very well, and I tell a lot of stories in the book about
Strom, about how in 1949 he was on the reviewing stand after he'd run
as a Dixiecrat candidate and almost cost Truman the election. And he
was going by the reviewing stand, and there was Alvin Barkley, who's
his colleague in the Senate, the vice president and President Truman.
And Strom was the governor of South Carolina, and he
walked--dro--drove by in an open car and a top hat, and he tips his
hat to President Truman and to Barkley, and Barkley starts to lift his
hand to wave, and Truman pulls his hand down and says, `Don't you wave
at that SOB.'

And Strom talked about all those young kids who were in the Senate
while he was there, this young fellow, Kennedy, who came in from
Massachusetts and Lyndon Johnson. And he's really legendary; he's 98,
etc. But he told me this story about Yarborough on the Judiciary
Committee...

LAMB: From Texas.

Sen. SPECTER: From Texas, Ralph Yarborough. And...

LAMB: A liberal and a Democrat.

Sen. SPECTER: A liberal and a Democrat. And in the motorcade where
President Kennedy was assassinated, there was--interesting story in
the book about Ralph Yarborough and the assassination. But on this
occasion, Yarborough was standing right outside--str--Strom was
standing right outside the Judiciary Committee room, and Yarborough
went out and said, `Come on inside, Strom. We need a quorum.' You
can't conduct business unless you have 10 people there. And Strom
said, `I'm not coming in there to--for a quorum.'

He didn't want the committee to conduct any business. But he also--in
the event the committee got a quorum and started to conduct business,
he was going to be right in there to throw a monkey wrench into what
they--what they were doing. So Yarborough grabs ahold of Strom and
starts to try to pull him into the room. So Strom twists him around,
throws him on the floor and puts a scissors lock on him. And the two
of them are out there in the corridor, as the story goes, with Strom
on a scissor lock on Yarborough and wouldn't let him up until
Yarborough promised not to go back into the hearing room.

Last year we had a hearing and Strom came in that same door, 226 in
the Dirksen Building. And when he came in the door and sat down, I
regaled the audience with that story.

LAMB: Back to Anita Hill for a moment, because you tell a story in
the book about meeting Anita Hill a couple of year--about four years
ago. It just so happens that right after you had that meeting with
her in the Oklahoma airport, she came here and she did BOOKNOTES.

Sen. SPECTER: Oh, did she?

LAMB: And I've got about a minute and a half clip. I want to run it,
and then get you to tell your side of the story, because you didn't
get a chance then. Here's Anita Hill.

(Excerpt from October 23, 1997)

Professor ANITA HILL (Author, "Speaking Truth to Power"): Well, I
think we were both a little shocked, and he recovered more quickly
than I did, I think. He looked at me at the security X-ray belt and
said, `Professor,' and I said, `Senator.' And--and then it was almost
bizarre because he began to talk with me about what--asked me if I was
on a book tour and told me that he was at the--at the university for a
reunion. He'd actually gone to the University of Oklahoma and was
there for a reunion weekend. And he had--w--it was though we were
having a conversation between acquaintances that--but for me, it was
as though those six years didn't matter. When someone's called
you--accused you of flat-out perjury on national TV, especially when
they have no basis for it, it--I--I could not just jump into a
conversation with him as though we had just been civil acquaintances.

So it was difficult for me and I hurriedly tried to get out of the
way. Later on he encountered me--it turns out we were on the same
flight. He encountered me and made some overture about working on
issues that he--giving him some advice on issues that he was working
on, on women's issues. It was at that point I realized that--that he
reali--he had no sense of how my life had been impacted by his
behavior; that he was just that out of touch with the reality of my
experience. For him, I think it was another political episode, and
for me, it was really about my life. And I don't think he--he got
that at all. I didn't get any sense that he had. So I--you know, I
don't know if I want an apology from him, but I do want some sense
that he understands what he did and what was wrong about what he did.

(End of excerpt)

Sen. SPECTER: Well, that's substantially accurate, what she has said
as to the encounter. There was a little more to it. When I said
`Professor, Professor Hill,' I mentioned her name. When she said
`Senator, Senator,' she didn't mention my name and perhaps she didn't
want to. I thought she might have forgotten it, but--but doubted
that. When we'd gone through security--I was at the University of
Oklahoma attending a reunion. I was born and raised in Kansas and
went to OU for a year. And Joan and I were on our flight to Houston,
Texas, regrettably to raise money on a fund-raiser. And Joan has a
luggage c--carrier, and it got tangled up in Professor Hill's purse.
So I did have a few words with her there.

And on the plane, Joan and I were in the--seated just a row behind
her, and when we landed, I did approach her and asked her if she would
be interested in commenting on some of the issues which we had before
my subcommittee on women's health and--and education. I chair the
subcommittee which funds the Departments of Health and Education. And
she said, `Well, give me a call.' And I said, `What's your number?'
And she said, `I'm in the telephone book.'

And early the next week, I got a call from The Washington Post saying,
`Did you bump into Professor Hill at the airport in Oklahoma City?'
And I said I did. And the reporter said, `She says you didn't
apologize.' And I said, `Well, that's true. I did not apologize.'

Now when Professor Hill talks about the impact on--on her life, I do
understand what--what she's saying. But the Judiciary Committee was
looking at a nomination of Clarence Thomas for Supreme Court of the
United States, and she had come forward 10 years after the fact with
some very serious charges. And as you said earlier, there was phase
one, and it was apparent that Thomas was going to be confirmed with
perhaps as many as 60 votes. And then she made these charges. And in
our American system, when charges are made, they have to be examined.

And I had respect, really admiration, for Professor Hill for coming
forward to testify, but that did not mean that what she had to say
would be taken at face value. For one thing, when she gave a
statement to the FBI on September 23rd and an identical statement to
the Judiciary Committee, there was a very substantial variance with
what she said on October the 10th. There was quite a lot which had
been added.

Now what occurred between Clarence Thomas and Professor Anita Hill, I
don't know. But I do know that she had to be questioned about how she
could have such a continuing, detailed, friendly relationship with him
if what had happened had been so bad, had been--had been harassment.
By the way, she never concluded that Thomas had harassed her. She
left that up to the committee. So I asked her, `Why did you go with
him from the Department of Education to EEOC if he was so bad?' She
said, `Well, I needed the job.' OK. Then I said, `Well, why did you
invite him to Oklahoma to Oral Roberts University?' `Well, we needed a
speaker and I knew him.' `Well, why did you drive him to the airport?'
`Well, I thought it was the courteous thing to do.' `Well, why did you
call him?' We had all these records that Thomas produced when he
wasn't there. `Why did you call him so often?' `Well, to stay in
touch.'

Now these are all questions to be--to be asked out of fairness to
Thomas. And again I would invite people to look at the--at my
questioning of her. Some of the others may have had a little
differing.

LAMB: You went back and--at a meeting with Clarence Thomas. When
would that happen, and where did it happen?

Sen. SPECTER: It happened in June of 1999.

LAMB: Where?

Sen. SPECTER: He came over to my office. I'll tell you the
circumstances. Senator Grassley and Justice Thomas were having
breakfast in the Senate dining room one morning, and I'd only seen
Justice Thomas maybe two or three times. Now the Senate has dinners
with the Supreme Court from time to time. And I said hello; never had
a talk with him. I was invited to go to the victory celebration the
night he was confirmed, and I wasn't participating in any victory
celebrations. To me, it was a--a job which was finished.

But at any rate, I walked over and I said hello to Senator Grassley
and Justice Thomas. I said, `Justice Thomas, this may surprise you to
know how hard it was for me to persuade Grassley to vote for you.' And
they both about fell off their chairs, 'cause Chuck is
archconservative. And we--we then made a date, and I was actually on
my way to his chambers, which--across the street, Constitution Avenue,
when I bumped into him in the lobby of the Hart Building. We walked
upstairs to my office and had a long talk.

LAMB: What'd he tell you that you didn't know?

Sen. SPECTER: He told me that he greatly admired my standing in the
breach, an expression he used repeatedly, because he was surprised
that I would defend him when my views were entirely different from his
views. And I told him I wasn't defending him; I was participating in
the process, that I thought he was entitled to have these questions
asked because they were serious charges which were brought against
him.

And I asked him if he had it to do all over again, that I had a
suspicion he would prefer not to even be on the Supreme Court rather
than to have gone through what he went through. And he pondered that,
and I could see that he sort of felt that way, but the response he
gave me was, `Well, it's a great experience, and it's a great court,'
and he's thoroughly enjoyed it. And he told me about meeting
President Bush.

And then I asked him why he never asked any questions in arguments;
he--he's notorious for remaining silent. And he said he wanted to
give the lawyers a chance to--to speak. And then I asked him about
the court. I said to him, `The Supreme Court has handed down a whole
series of decisions declaring acts of Congress unconstitutional
because Congress hasn't "thought them through." Now I can understand
the Supreme Court declaring acts unconstitutional if they're at
variance with a clause of the Constitution, but to say that the
Congress hasn't thought it through, what makes the court think that it
can think it through better?

And I'm very much concerned about what the Supreme Court is doing, and
I registered in a collegial conversation they have taken over a
tremendous amount of authority, which has a Rehnquist agenda. And
we're now facing a situation of Roe vs. Wade where there may be an
effort to dismantle Roe vs. Wade, and I discussed with him the
question about what questions are appropriate for a senator to ask.
There's sort of a--there's sort of...

LAMB: At a confirmation hearing?

Sen. SPECTER: At confirmation hearings. There's sort of a practice,
Brian, that you don't ask a senator--you don't ask a nominee a
question on a case which is likely to come before the court. And in
the book, I talk about Scalia. He wouldn't even answer whether he
would support Marbury vs. Madison, which is 1803, supremacy of the
court. And I talk about the Rehnquist hearings, which were pretty
contentious on this. And I've come to a view that the Senate may have
to assert its authority to ask questions. I don't think anybody
would--would disagree that we have a right to say to a justice, `Are
you going to stand by Brown vs. Board?'

LAMB: At--we just have a short time left. But you did say, though,
that because Judge Bork answered all your questions, he probably lost.

Sen. SPECTER: Well, that's true.

LAMB: I mean, did...

Sen. SPECTER: That's--that's true. But, Brian, what I go into in
the book is that the nominees answer as many questions as they think
they have to to be confirmed. And Judge Bork answered a lot of
questions because he had a lot of writings. And if he hadn't answered
the questions, he would have been rejected surely.

LAMB: Now you voted for Clarence Thomas, but against Judge Bork?

Sen. SPECTER: That's right.

LAMB: And there was one thing that was a surprise to me. You went
back to Tom Coralovis, who I believe worked for the Reagan
administration...

Sen. SPECTER: Yeah.

LAMB: ...and was the man who shepherded Judge Bork through the
process, and he was very candid with you about what--they weren't very
happy with Judge Bork back then.

Sen. SPECTER: Well, Judge Bork, as I write in the book--behind the
scenes, they were trying to figure out a way how to get Arlen Specter
on board. And Coralovis told me a lot about what happened with Bork
and Rehnquist, and he wouldn't participate. And as I write in the
book, Judge Bork, a brilliant man and a constitutional law professor,
was not prepared. When we went through the cases--and I detail them.
For example, Hess vs. Indiana, Bork said it was an obscenity case.
It wasn't. It was a speech case.

And by the time he got through talking about his view of original
intent, absent original intent, no judicial legitimacy and no judicial
review, had he been confirmed--and we had three elderly justices on at
the time, Brennan and Blackmun and Marshall. If we'd had three more
vacancies and you'd had Bork as a dominant intellectual force, added
to Scalia and Rehnquist, they could have turned the Constitution
upside down.

LAMB: Can this president, George W. Bush, get somebody through the
process up there to get on the Supreme Court in the next four years?
Is it possible?

Sen. SPECTER: He can, providing they are not going to dismantle a--a
woman's right to choose. If they're going to dismantle a woman's
right to choose, I believe the Senate is going to be a lot tougher on
asking questions about matters that are going to come before the
court.

LAMB: If they won't answer that question if they come before you,
would you vote for them?

Sen. SPECTER: Well, I'm seriously considering that. In light of
what's happened in the intervening time, I'm supporting Ashcroft, have
supported him. But the family planning money overseas is now in
jeopardy in a very controversial, contentious issue. And if there's a
sense that there's going to be an effort to overturn Roe vs. Wade,
and this is something I want to talk to others about, my inclination
would be to insist on answers and assurances and to withhold
confirmation absent that.

LAMB: When are you up for election again?

Sen. SPECTER: '04.

LAMB: Do you think you'll run?

Sen. SPECTER: Probably.

LAMB: Did this--what was the main motivator in writing this book, and
how--how long did it take? We only have about a minute.

Sen. SPECTER: It took three years dictating into a machine. The
main motivator was my concern about the free fall of voting in
elections and the enormous skepticism and distrust in America by the
people and what happened at Ruby Ridge and Waco and the Gulf War
syndrome, p--the government lying to Gulf War veterans in 1991, like
they lied and mistreated my father, and to tell the details on the
single bullet theory so people would have it from the guy who came up
with it as to what had happened, and, really, to tell my children
about and my grandchildren about what my father had gone through and
to tell them about my generation so that they could build on that and
improve upon that.

LAMB: Well, if folks want to hear about the single bullet theory,
they're going to have to buy the book.

Sen. SPECTER: It's not too expensive, Brian.

LAMB: Here's what it looks like. It's called the "Passion for
Truth." Our guest has been Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
Thank you very much.

Sen. SPECTER: Thank you, Brian.

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Passion for Truth