Recording History: Glenn Senate Staff Give Witness to His Legacy
Dr. Michael Slater, left, worked in Washington, D.C., for 15 years, with the majority as a staff member to Sen. John Glenn.
When Sen. John Glenn returned from his second voyage to space, Dr. Michael Slater, who had been a longtime staffer to the senator, received a much-anticipated notice via the U.S. Postal Service.
Witnesses to the past should speak to the past and give it animation and full color.
Step Back in History
The Ohio Public Policy Archives Congressional Staff Oral History Project interviews and transcripts are available online through Ohio State University Libraries.
“It’s really important. Another reason is one person’s take on the past is never good enough,” Slater said. “It’s never good enough to say, ‘This is how one person saw this and that explains history.’ The idea is to have a broad view of how history looked and then to put it in proper context.”
Assistant Professor Carly Dearborn, public policy archivist for Ohio State University Libraries, said the 10 oral histories and two written interviews conducted so far are part of the library’s Ohio Public Policy Archives’ Congressional Staff Oral History project.
Sharing the Washington Experience
Learn about how former Senator Glenn staffers established the Friends and Former Staff of Senator John Glenn Endowed WAIP Scholarship Fund to provide housing support for students in the Glenn College Washington Academic Internship Program (WAIP).
Scholars and students may use them to research specific legislation, political issues or congressional history, while journalists, educators and members of the public may turn to them for firsthand accounts of important events and personalities.
“The John Glenn staffers I have had the privilege to meet speak with remarkable dedication about both the work they accomplished and the culture Senator Glenn created in his office,” Dearborn said. “Their interviews not only illuminate Senator Glenn’s legacy but also offer insights into the people and relationships that made that legacy possible.”
Read a sample of some of the oral histories collected so far from Glenn staffers.
Patricia “Pat” Buckheit served more than two decades spanning Glenn’s full Senate tenure. She later worked at the State Department Office of Legislative Affairs for two years and then went into early childhood education.
She talked about how Glenn took time to talk to people, especially groups of children, even if he was in a hurry.
“Even if he was going for a vote, he’d show them where to pick up buckeyes on the lawn,” she said. “He kept a jar of them in his office to give to kids who came into the office.”
She also remembered how he cared for the less fortunate.
“... on foreign policy and defense matters I would call him a moderate. But on a lot of domestic issues, he was much more liberal,” she said. “Equal rights, civil rights. Assistance for the poor so that everybody had the same opportunity in life and they could do what they could with it. But he wanted people to have an opportunity to succeed and make it.”
Chris Jennings joined Sen. John Glenn’s staff on the Senate Special Committee on Aging in 1983 as an intern and then was hired as staff assistant. He served on the committee until 1993. He is founder and president of Jennings Policy Strategies Inc., a healthcare consulting firm.
Jennings remembered Glenn talking to staffers after the 1986 space shuttle Challenger explosion, sharing how hard it was for him to talk to the families after the tragedy.
“[He] had these deeply piercing blue eyes,” Jennings said. “And I was looking into them and it was so powerful seeing this guy who was the most patriotic, brave, courageous man [you knew] — who you’ve heard all these stories about in war, break down and be willing to share that with his staff. And then say, ‘Despite it all, I want you to know something. That if you ever have the opportunity to do something bigger than yourself, you must seize that opportunity.’”
Within two years, Jennings got that opportunity and donated his kidney to his brother — and received a call from the senator.
“And he said, ‘I’m just checking up on you. How are you doing? You did a great thing here,’” Jennings said. “And I said, ‘You know, Senator, I know that one of the reasons I’m doing this is because of that day that you shared the recommendation that if [we] have the opportunity to do something bigger than [ourselves], to take that, to seize that opportunity.’ And he gets all emotional on the phone, and I get all emotional on the phone. And it’s just very memorable and moving.”
Mike McCurry worked on Glenn’s 1984 presidential campaign and then on the Senate Special Committee on Aging. He then shifted his career into federal communication roles, including as communications director for the Democratic National Committee, spokesman for the U.S. Department of State and White House Press Secretary to President Bill Clinton.
He recalled an event where presidential candidates were asked what were the most important issues that the country would confront if they were elected.
“And the other candidates had fairly predictable, ‘Oh, I think it’s peace, and making sure America’s secure.’ Very typical political answers,” McCurry said. “And when John Glenn’s turn came, he said, ‘I think the major issue that we’re going to face is battery storage.’ And we’re all in the back saying, ‘What?! What did he just say? He said ‘battery storage! Yes, we need, we really need to concentrate on how we’re going to store electricity for the future.’ And we were all despondent. Because we said, ‘Oh, God, what a wonky, crazy answer.’ Well, it turns out that he was visionary about that. Because that is in fact one of the big issues that we face today.”
Randy Rydell served as a senior professional staff member on the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs under Glenn from 1987 to 1998, where he helped draft the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act of 1994 and edited the committee’s newsletter, Proliferation Watch. After leaving the Senate, he held senior positions at the United Nations, contributing to global disarmament initiatives. He continues to advocate for nuclear disarmament and public service and serves as executive advisor to Mayors for Peace.
“He was not elected because of his leadership in stopping the spread of nuclear weapons; he was elected because of the things that he did for the state of Ohio,” Rydell said of Glenn. “But I would argue that one of the greatest things he did for the state of Ohio was to protect its citizens from some of the world’s worst weapons.”
“...I think at his heart he recognized the grave human calamity that would happen if any of these weapons were ever to be used again. He was deeply moved by the consequences of these weapons and what they did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and wanted never, ever to see that happen again to any human being. Wherever they are,” Rydell said. “And you can’t help but be moved by someone like that, and ... to sit back and think, be forever grateful of having the great pleasure of working for a man like that.”