So with the Olympic Gold Medal, it was more nationalistic and you were representing your country.
Right. And really the Olympics was a world youth festival, so you lived in an Olympic village and got to know each other. People from all around the world.
Like the United Nations of Sports.
Yes.
Let's move on to what are the three proudest things you feel you've done in the Senate?
The three things I would pick as legislative accomplishments would be the tax reform bill in 1986, and, in 1992, the Freedom Exchange Act, which was a law that invited high school students from Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and other former Soviet Republics, who qualified after an interview process, to live with an American family for a year. 1,500 came each year - so a total of about 25,000 over 20 years - until in 2016 Vladimir Putin cancelled their participation. The kids learned about America by living with an American family and the families learned about Russia by having a Russian kid in their household talking about Russia and their experience.
Two very important pieces of legislation. It's difficult to pick - and then I think the third piece of legislation would be the Central Valley Improvement Act, which was the reform of how water is allocated in California. The first time it was ever done.
The foundation of all of that rests on a feeling I developed for the people of New Jersey and the country and my desire to know both in great depth. So I'd say those were the key things when I was in the Senate.
You picked New Jersey over your home state Missouri. What motivated you to pick New Jersey?
I recognize I was born and grew up in Missouri, but I came to New Jersey when I was 18 and went to Princeton. And then I was in the Air Force Reserves at McGuire AFB in New Jersey for six or seven years. Then when I got married, I moved to New Jersey, and so New Jersey became home for me, and therefore it was natural to run for office from your home. I ran in 1978 and I hadn't been in Missouri for any length of time since 1961, so it was a natural evolution. I loved its [New Jersey's] diversity and I loved its natural beauty.
It's called the Garden State for a reason. And most people think it's all like Newark or Secaucus. It's not!
In the past four weeks, I've eaten Jersey corn, Jersey tomatoes, Jersey peaches, and Jersey watermelon.
Why didn't you accept the vice-presidency from Bill Clinton in 1992?
On one level, I didn't think I was prepared to be president and to be vice-president, you have to be ready to be president. I thought I had to learn some more things. I thought I needed a team that was deeper, etc.
On another level, I had a younger daughter whom I didn't want to subject to the stress of the campaign. My wife at the time was of German background and I knew that the whole Nazi thing would have been brought up and I didn't want malicious attacks because she was German, so I decided I really wasn't ready to run, and I had family considerations. And it turned out to be a blessing in disguise because my wife, that early summer at the end of May, got breast cancer and that campaign would have been impossible. So someone was telling me that it wasn't a wise thing to do. And thank God I didn't do it. Because it would have been impossible with her chemotherapy for six months.
But she beat the breast cancer.
She beat it, she's alive and she's in great shape. [They divorced in 2007].
Do you have a basketball court or an outside area to play basketball at your house?
No, I don't. When we lived in New Jersey, I used to go down to the public playground and shoot. When we moved from Denville to Montclair, and I shot around the Montclair YMCA. I'm too old to play basketball now, I can shoot a little bit, but I can't move. I do yoga every day for about an hour and a half, and I do the elliptical or swim or walk - that's my aerobics.
So you're staying in shape.
Trying to!
You have done just about everything that most men and women would love to do just one of, and you've had about ten major careers plus all your accomplishments! Would you ever like to be on the Supreme Court?
I'm not a lawyer, so I couldn't be appointed to the Supreme Court.
Would you ever consider being NBA Commissioner or an NBA Coach?
No! They have a great NBA Commissioner in Adam Silver. And an NBA Coach? No, I've never wanted to be an NBA coach.
So doing what you like to do is what you're doing.
I like what I do now, I work at Allen and Company. It's a merchant bank. I like being around young entrepreneurs who want to change the world because that's what I wanted to do in politics. And so I like mentoring them and talking not only about their companies, but about their lives. A number of my clients are in Asia so I make an annual trip to Japan, China, Singapore, and Korea. So I like that. I like what I do. And I love my radio show that I've had for 16 years. It's called, "American Voices" and it's on Sirius XM, Channel 124 on Sunday mornings at 11 AM (EST), and usually about three or four other times on the weekends.
I love it because people ask me, "What do you miss about not being in politics?" I miss not doing Public Policy 24 hours a day and I loved that. Second, I miss the people, and this gives me a chance to plug into people because the premise of the program is to let people hear the kind of stories that I heard on the road for 40 years, as a player, and a politician, and a business person. And it boiled down to two broad categories: 1) someone has got an unusual job: a public health nurse in the Aleutian Islands, groundskeeper in Fenway Park, that kind of thing, which is about the dignity of work; 2) the other is someone doing something selfless in their community, like the guy who shined shoes at Pittsburgh Children's Hospital for 46 years and out of every tip he got, he put a portion away to pay for poor kids' health care. The day I interviewed him, he had a hundred thousand dollars ($100,000.), which he gave to the hospital. These interviews are about the goodness of American people. I love my work at Allen [and Company] and I love my [radio] show. I try to keep my hand in Public Policy through the Carnegie Endowment for Peace and Foreign Policy. And I'm involved in politics in giving people advice. And for the last two years, I worked on a one-man show, which I was going to do in April, May, and June of this year, but unfortunately COVID19 killed it. But it always gets better, so at some point, I will do that, too. So that's where my interests are.
What you do with Allen and Company, they do a lot of funding of new companies, is that true?
It's a merchant bank, which means you do the normal investment banking stuff like mergers and acquisitions. And you raise capital, and it's also a venture capital firm, which means it invests in a lot of young companies.
So that keeps your finger in the pie of youth and empowering people to contribute to the planet in a positive way.
Yes. I'm on a couple of Boards, largely because of the young CEOs. There's a company in Boston, called Fractyl - I'm on its Board because of the young guy who founded it. He has a Ph.D. in biochemistry and he's found a new way to treat metabolic disease - it is non-drug, non-behavior approach. It is a very simple thing - its premise is that most of metabolic disease comes from the gut, the duodenum. He puts a catheter down through the duodenum and runs hot water through it against the walls of the duodenum. And then the duodenum can absorb insulin. It's a very simple procedure. I'm doing it because I like that the young guy really wants to change the world in metabolic disease, from diabetes, fatty liver, and PCOS, so to be associated with something that can potentially dramatically reduce metabolic disease is exciting.
To apply for funding from Allen and Company, do you have the forms on the website?
We're out listening, people call and say, "This is a great company, did you hear about that?" Allen and Company doesn't really have a website because that's part of the privacy.
Herb Allen does a big annual retreat.
We usually have a retreat in March in Arizona and one in the summer in Sun Valley - which has been going on for nearly 50 years. My first one there was in 1983. COVID19 prevented both from happening this year.
He's got an excellent reputation.
Well, that's what it's all about.
I'm sitting here surrounded by your books: Life on the Run, Values of the Game, The New American Story.
Do you have Time Present, Time Past; do you have that one?
No, I haven't gotten that one yet. It's next on my list.
That's my love letter to America, it's about my Senate years.
Well, keep writing. You are really a poet. You use such incredible imagery when you write. The way you describe people…sunsets…interactions. The way you write is just lyrical. "Time Present, Time Past" will be my next book of yours that I read.
Let me know what you think about that one.
I will! Any more books in your computer?
Oh, yeah, yeah. You always have more. I spent two years writing this one man show. I have others after me to write it as a longer book. Yes, the answer is I'm always thinking of books. I might write a book about fairy tales, or about dreams and visions.
Would you like to write a novel?
I like writing, but I'm a fact writer, not a fiction writer.
I think you're a lyrical writer, and I think you should keep writing, no matter what you write.
Well, thank you very much, Linnda.
