Topeka Capital-Journal
Dec. 18, 1995.

So, you want me to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Nancy Kassebaum. Well, with that in mind, let’s review my employment history once again.

First, forget the early training at Doc Snider’s drug store in Britton, Okla., my morning and evening paper route that covered one-third of Britton, my stint at the vegetable rack at the Piggly Wiggly grocery store, and my time as the pilot of a passenger elevator in the First National Bank building in Oklahoma City.

My first significant job was with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Its agents came through town hiring Okies, probably because we were willing to go to Washington to work for. $1,440 per year. That’s $120.00 per month or $27.69 per week. Plus all the ice water you could drink.

I wasn’t there long, but it is significant that the FBI’s prestige and credibility have declined steadily, and today it is generally in a state of disrepute and low esteem.

J. Edgar Hoover, once revered as the toughest, most incorruptible lawman in the world, now is remembered as a bigot and egomaniac who really misused his power and authority.

There are those who would say I left my mark on the FBI, and that my draft board virtually had to send a posse there to get me, and that it found me hiding under my desk.

Whatever, I spent most of the next four years in the employ of the U.S. Navy, and you know what happened to it. Our side won World War II, but the Navy has been sinking steadily ever since.

Today, Its football team has lost four straight to Army. It still is trying to recover from the infamous Tailhook scandal, and is once again in the public doghouse because one of its Admirals recently said two servicemen accused of raping a 12-year-old would have been better off if they’d hired a prostitute.

While it is true I didn’t serve in either the Atlantic or Pacific theatres of war, I did participate in some scary invasions of Key West, Cuba and Catalina, but it will be said of me now only that I reflect the current thinking of the Navy.

After the war, and some additional schooling, I worked on three newspapers in Texas that never won a Pulitzer Prize, or even the respect and admiration of their intelligent readers.

Then I was hired by the Topeka Daily Capital, and you know what happened to it. And less than 10 years after my arrival, it was bought out, and ceased to exist, And it will be said of me that I hastened its demise.

My next stop was back in Washington, with the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. You may have read recently what is happening to it. It is on the brink, threatened with total elimination in 1996.

There are those who will point out I was there, and they will ask, are we beginning to see a pattern here? Does everything he touches turn to disaster?

I must admit the evidence keeps piling up. My next job was in the campaign to elect Bud Wilkinson to the U.S. Senate and that was an unprecedented disaster. From there, I followed him to something called the Lifetime Sports Foundation, which now is nothing more than the memory of a bad joke.

Next, I laid my magic touch on NCAA films, and where is it now? Nowhere. It is as dead as the hope for honesty and college sports, and they will find my fingerprints at the scene of the crime.

Feeling it was time to leave my mark on the corporate world, I moved to an office at Vickers Petroleum Corporation, and went to work. It didn’t take me long, They’ll say, because Vickers soon disappeared, gobbled up by a bigger fish. I wound up in Des Moines, with another petroleum marketer, Pester, but now that brand name, too, is gone from the highways and byways of America.

At that point I retired, but it occurred to me that I never had done any harm to college football, so I decided that for a grand finale, I would do a turn with the College Football Association. Sure enough, It soon lost its clout and today is little more than a sewing circle with a pulpit.

Back in Topeka after a long absence, I started writing a column for this newspaper, owned by Stauffer. So what happened? Stauffer was bought, and the publishing name disappeared.

The new owner is Morris. Is Morris concerned that I am even a minuscule part of its operation? There are those who say it should be.

So, while, while I appreciate your urging me to run, and while it would be interesting to see what would happen to the US Senate if I got in, I must, for the good of the country, declare I won’t be a candidate.