Robert Strauss
Robert Strauss came from a German Jewish family that immigrated to Texas after the Civil War, arriving first in Galveston and settling in the Hempstead area. His mother's family, the Schwartz family, ran a small store, and a relative was said to be among the first reform rabbis in Texas. His grandfather Leo later moved to Lockhart, where he prospered modestly with a store on the town square. Strauss's father came from Germany years later as a piano salesman and musician, met his mother while traveling, and the couple married and set out on their own. Born in Lockhart in October 1918, Robert grew up mainly in the small towns of Hamlin and Stanford as his family sought a living.
The family struggled financially, especially after the 1929 crash, but Strauss recalled that everyone in those small West Texas towns was poor, so the children never felt deprived of essentials. His mother was the strong, steady breadwinner who ran the store and dreamed great things for her sons, while his father was warm, popular, emotional, and better suited to music than business. A memorable family trip to Europe when Robert was about ten remained a treasured story his parents held onto through hard times. He worked in the store after school and on Saturdays, and his younger brother later became a successful businessman in packaging, banking, and real estate.
Though Strauss had little formal Jewish education, his family kept the store closed for the High Holy Days and traveled to Fort Worth to attend services with his grandmother. He grew up secure in his Jewish identity, occasionally facing anti-Semitism but not dwelling on it. Encouraged by his mother toward law and public life, he attended the University of Texas, joined the fraternity Sigma Alpha Mu, and became friends with future governor John Connally through campus politics and shared support for Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. After law school he joined the FBI in 1941, serving four years across several states, an experience he credited with helping him mature. He then returned to Dallas, co-founded a law firm with his friend Dick Gump, and later served as president of his congregation. He married his wife, whom he met at the University of Texas, and built a distinguished career.
Full Transcript
story of them from what's been described as modest circumstances to a position as representative of your country in the number of important positions and leadership of your party and other important jobs what we like to do is start the beginning if we may you were born in Lockhart Texas in a Tober of 1918 that's good what kind of town is or was Lockhart and how did your family come to be there well my mother's parents my grandfather and grandmother my grandfather was one of a number of brothers who came to Texas shortly after the Civil War and around that time somewhere and they came from
Germany very old there were a typical German family then that came here with a few dollars i suspect and they came to Galveston you know what brought them to galveston in particular they really really went to hempstead first I mean after that they came to Gauss with all the great many of the German Jews who came came the Gauss and they had relatives or friends and they wanted to come to Southwest and get away for crowds that they saw then New York was of course it to them a teeming city so I've been told and no they wanted to go to land of off kindy
so they the Schwartz family it was not with the tea was at chw arz originally went to him stood and I think my grandfather's I think a great uncle of mine was the first I'm almost certain was the first reform rabbi in Texas and that was a him state and he came to Hampstead into that area at general area and after they had been there sometime my mother's parents struck out on their own went on to Lockhart they left some of the relatives and they moved to Lockhart Texas how far is that rock art Texas ol must have been 150 miles further inland coughs and
then when the first officers him stood in their enhanced its own my I guess my great uncle and his had my grandfather's brother had a little stolen he had a little store and ragged store in a little funeral parlor and a little of everything else and that was be Schwartz and Sons and then the Schwartz and family they call a store radiant Sun and my grandfather was then he moved into Lockhart Texas and he became his name was Leo and it became else warts and company was the store there so my grandfather and grandmother lived in my car it was a sleepy little southern town
of about 3,500 people and it depended upon cotton for its main it was it's the cash crop of the town and they had a little store around the square and they prospered a bit tight my mother my mother grew in the came jung woon my father then came here from Jeremy seven years later and he met my mother and he traveled through that part of country he was a piano salesman he was a musician but a musician couldn't make a living as a musician if she wasn't uniquely good so my dad started as piano salesman he met my mother and my corn and they were
married and they 21 distract on their own my father wanted to be independent so did my mother family and my grandfather let my father have she's our dollars a little credit and they went to Hamlin Texas and move another couple hundred miles west now they back up just a little bit on do you know where in Germany your mother's family came from no i don't i really don't we fathers no i think my father's bavaria and I don't know where my mother stand it was from probably get that far you know i'll try to do it right come today me well dad had to be
traveling to that part of the country someone introduced in my mother-in-law car and they were married after an hour long courtship my mother had sort of helped monograms her father run the business he saw a businesswoman and she was not a young woman when they married she was about 30 i think which was i guess not which was getting to be along in years in those days which he always told me it's you're not young and my dad was not you know he's got a bachelor of some time they fell in love and and a happy marriage for a long time you mentioned that your
grandfather i think it was was one of the first reform rabbis I thought is one of his brothers oh yes well his brother who's a great uncle of mine it was I see that and did he have a pope there and there are no such thing as a perfect but what we have is a is a jewish families for miles around and a little towns would gather on some doubt on friday nice normally not but on on the holidays and I'm sure he must maybe he made his live in another way another member of the family about that same time named Sue ler unless you
le rsuh le are who was came that same family he was the first reform rabbi in dallas texas support quite City he had to pull up there and he had yes he then he had a serious congregation what what congregation will get you I don't even know what it was called and get back in it's sad that I don't know because I had an interest in this many years ago when I first came to Dallas so I left on our marriage mid-forties I went back and did a history of the Jews in Texas I spent about a month to working on that project several months
researching and I'll be damned if I didn't it was all written out I didn't type it I wrote it out and I spoke the temple sisterhood damn it and gave that and it was interesting I was fascinated with it and a couple years later I started looking at those papers they were gone I never know what happened to never duplicated to work at a whole file DISA disappeared with the great deal research and you don't know whether the sisterhood still has it or not I'm sure they know i gave will old statement there too 30 40 the ladies have nothing else to do do that
i would be do it they would have been listening so how do you know why are you trying to establish myself as not being a scholar community that was a good way of doing it and i was interested so you your early years for the most part was finding him Lee Hom l IM in was a small little town about 2,000 people and I guess until I was about third or fourth grade fourth grade completed there and when I was going in the inner the fifth grade my parents moved Stanford which was 30 miles of 15 miles away Stanford was a town twice as large
it was about 4,000 and we further had my mother's sister lived there they wanted to be together and town seemed to be posturing a little more than Hamlet so we move there and have store from the store there these moves were always in pursuit of better business on his pursuit of a living there they were trying to make a living my father had was then having financial troubles he done a rather unique thing my mother made but the year before we move there my mother thought that we ought to all go to Europe who she talked to she wanted to go at her father mother
and one take me I was a kid of about well I guess of a second or third grade third grades or what are 10 years old people in the wind there my brother was three so my dad said we couldn't lino I leave the store and she said well this close the damn story she like a lot on business and one off for three months to Europe but why was she anxious to go back to you because she wanted when she wanted a company her parents and second she wanted to see revisit place of her or her parents were born and she wanted me a
10 year old man to have a feel of those things and there are two things that required one dragging on the three-year-old and to closing the store so brother Ted went and the store closed and my father never recovered from that 29 crash came that year and so he was dead broke again today as he was looking on they do more venison Stanford and he kept his store over there as we were growing up then we made it at best a living it was a very difficult time and he never accumulate anything you would call much about that trip that the 10 year old when
I do to cause him some of it yes I'm caller we went on a boat I recall it we didn't go first class we went 2nd class and I recall us leasing some of the relatives over there and so I'm had their flash on five homes one of them remember with Edgar one of the papers and insert it my recollection is it was a Jewish paper that was published sir and I can't lend me the Yiddish is something or other and I recall but the recollections are rather vague now when i first came back and was a young man i recall things better how lonely
trip was it about three months to when you came back and your father was was struggling this was just after the Great Wall Street Crash think must have been very rough for you yeah i think the duck with my family and i didn't had a hard time keeping the store open and getting a few dollars out of it things are really very small business and everyone was broke so didn't see it we didn't really know we were poor because everyone is so poor no one Hannah it doesn't spend money on anyway and farmers brought in a few chickens and eggs and trade them for pair
of shoes and you know we still recall sunday morning i'm going to fried chicken I was that plenty of food in the house and when I go out and bring the chicken's neck and it was turkey I chopped it all the acts because it's too big for me and their marriages vividly but you didn't lack although you were cool you didn't matter like essential oh we always had more than essential my parents always saw that we had more than we need but we were poor we couldn't afford to do things we've never been one big patient's they want things that you saw some other people
doing but not in that town was everyone in that town was broke so did make a difference how did you manage to pay for the trip to Europe thing well as my dad had gone before yet and we came back with a crash you see are you so he's left he had a few thousand dollars didn't I tell things were good he went he didn't care he had a cheese Mountain bucks close the damn store and pick up where he left off come by the time he really came back and thinks he's going on the crash was either just before just after island shortly after
that but he figures out born in 18 I was about 10 so on 28-29 comes clash so my dad used to raise hell vital mother say when it argument saying what they hadn't closed that store they wouldn't have that trip I mean they wouldn't have been take that damn trip she wanted to go he wouldn't be broke she wasn't much wiser person that he was and she used to say Carl the only thing we have left is the trip and they can never take that away from us did you feel that way afterwards they always despite the poverty always said afterward whenever he complained he
constantly brought it up to a musical planer he would see would all say call the only thing we have left is that clear they'll never take that away from me and she had those memories she believed that never as strong as he he wasn't convinced I gather not a goddamn pair but I grew up with that philosophy the only what we have left is what we did with it I was told we give something away well if we tell you we do something I say well they can take everything away with godly and they will take that trip away following so then they will take
that gift away far as we know we've done that we got that done and my children growing up with that philosophy can't my mother tell me what ways your mother and your father was different I gather they were my father was a man of a particular even disposition he wasn't follow the work very hard he was a wasn't made for the world he really should have been a musician he was volatile emotional difficult my mother was quite strong steady firm with great Oh vision I think she I was the first of the two children she had and she used to always say Bobby will be
a great ambassador seen anyone either great and he will be the first Jewish governor of Texas well I turned down the chance to run for governor several times including this year and think I might have been elected and I did become an ambassador not so great my own Count's their son we would say so so I think that that's what really made me always she gave me the ability to dream and set goals and have a theme for my life and for our family's life and see an hour barely a closing you were closer to her than to your father much closer my father and
I got along well but he's a different man and but I idolized my mother and I knew our I was unhappily I was wise enough early enough to see my father's weaknesses and my mother strengths and isn't very nice to see those things on you that she was a breadwinner she ran the store Saturday afternoon when they were busy he would leave in groton was the car radio I remember the kid and hear the new york philharmonic i was at whatever was and then the met the beautiful music appeal to him or on saying i've been in the fall that was the only time the
pictures and farmers came into spending money and but two o'clock he told us radio or throw bleep them but to me you see my mother in the store and him sitting out the cars the radio it was not pleasant do you think it was temperament that that shake each other no was it something else oh i don't know i was on I don't get into those things they what they were I don't know what my mother I don't I think is just the jeans you have to be born with its on you get a break in your barn of strong genes my mother all of
her her three sisters were strong and brother was strong and very good they were fortunate my dad was weak nice man very popular man my mother enough to accomplish is serious hard-working very quiet reserved father was exceedingly popular everyone loved him and he gave me a great deal he gave me a personality and my brother personality served us very well don't even get along with people and now smile and go to turn a quip and the things that have served me very well in my public career so you did get something from heaven it's lady t / long I great your father above dinner we're
very close but I'm doing this thing as well call the storytellers it is he was temperamental rather emotional not very strong man what about your brother your mother had great confidence in your future and also on my brothers but mom my brother wasn't is a much better businessman and I am brighter I think in many respects and i are thinking intellectual competence is superior to mine he's been in the private sector of the public sector and he's seven years younger than I am and he's successful with it's interesting of all those people that were almost brothers it came to Texas i scattered out all the
landscape i have a lot of cousins and different cities still have cousins in Hampstead Houston Fort Worth but I don't think any of them accumulated very much but my brother myself we became by well-to-do by today's standards the others are all hard-working people wonderful people very close family I see them and talk to them I talked to him and my family over night I guess at least still what kind of business did you brother go into brother went into packaging business very successful and then I is chairing the board of a number of banks amazing banking in real estate you so he's had his career
to the successful as mine and she spend the private sector did you work in your father's store at all yes every day after school many days we were working always on Saturdays he went to public schools there oh yeah there were nothing else go to tell me about the Jewish life and it had 90 we didn't when I was a 12 years old I went to the baptists young people union 12 13 14 for what a social life and that's why the girls were so that's where I went under the story which is not not a potful the truth that they elected that are they
were elected officers Baptists young people union there was about 14 and 13 14 somebody nominated me for present and if they hadn't realized that I didn't belong really I wasn't remember her preacher had reminder that preacher name of Sam Morris our still remember without Prague been elected president that and oh man Sam are still living he runs a religious radio station San Antonio Texas must be 80 years old now 85 and I hear from occasionally but I'm everything telling in saying he can't elect him and so you went up bar mitzvah for example no I didn't know what bar missile was until I was 30
years old I suspected 20 20 years old but the Jews did come together on the case oh yes we my parents were close the store on Russia shown on Yom Kippur no matter how poor they how difficult it was it always as you know when the holidays are always falling Saturday what always very rare every tenth year I think otherwise but I can remember that that for my youth but they would always keep the store closed and the show they had respect their religion but we can occasionally we were driving to Fort Worth one of my grandparents then lived and go to services from with
them and would protect my grandmother in later years and we always went to one of the services with her by pose so we drive in about 165 miles and go to services together the next morning and drive back to go to service again the next morning and then drive back was that a consistent thing of how are they always consistent all the family came together her four children they've had children of their own she was I guess 65 or 70 s I look back in my parents for 45 45 and different time we were five so we were I was out our college we did
it we always did his like my grandmother was that do you have any memories of those services oh yes what kind of services with it well they were reformed services and rabbi so everything I had thought of 35 years but her name was Mel in the HL what was the name of this variation I don't know we don't know I later interesting that all that thing I served as president of the congregation and in Dallas but it wasn't causing my great background in Judaism our neighbors because of the fundraiser in it better than that congregation is always need money there's a family get-together on other
cases like Passover yes that we did on occasions lately but we still celebrate when we still make travel even though I never voted and although services were often okay so you were saying that while you did not have Jewish education you certainly were always aware that you were a Jew because of your family associations and was always some we thought that gospel as Jews and there was no question in the matter fact my mother didn't serve while we've had will estranged we didn't serve bacon or ham pork in the house and we never served bread of course during that Passover days but we have we
never went to service she never said a prayer we didn't like candles on Friday night we didn't have any of those things she had no feeling for Judaism in his formal sense herself she had never been busy she never been from me to my mother and father had ever been affiliated either his children or adults with any Jewish congregation they once thought it would be smart to bring a rabbi down to Wichita Falls would give my brother and I in education and he was supposed to come in not one day a week and drive down which taught Falls about 95 miles away and after his
first day or two with us he climbed the job he needs money but not that bad i had kinda that was the end of our jewish education so you resisted it yeah and it's always been a matter of some i want to stop mom about it then that's why i was so anxious my children all be confirmed and while i was somewhat active in the temple and we always played we have a key role in the temple life until the children each made their own decisions about what they want to do their lives i was going to ask you whether you felt at any time
to your later life the the lack of the jewish yes i did it was always awkward telling used to laugh because we would tell jokes involving something out of the Bible or something out of his Jewish history even though the simplest things involving Moses and I seem to know nothing about it I didn't ever quite sure who's in the bulrush you so to speak she used to say and but she it comes from a family that had a little bit different right now as a Jew you seem to have mingled quite easily with the non-jews in the community did you ever encounter any anti-semitism oh
sherrie encounter anti-semitism I never paid much attention we were always secure enough my mother father gave us great security they didn't worry about that very much we were we've grown up we were the roughs our environment called you babies and things like that Christ killer and you know things like that and you fought your way out of it I ran you know you big you ran ignored it she's Lily tried to whip his ass or thing in the EU 30 spots and that's why you learn teach learn a lot about life there's a great story when we lived in Hamling touches and there was a
great story out there for many many years I'll truly be no one living who remember now but I still remember the main a strange of the man his name a star inzer ions the ER injures drugs and my father was stellastot Eddie was pushing me and his in the baby carriage I was a baby I just moved from walk hard and on the not concrete but on wooden sidewalks if I had a little West Texas cowboy town of those days and cuz we toured store how his new year old son I guess to Euro era was a tangent some guy said that's a pretty little
back in 20 my father jumped a he's a little man by a horrible temper and he was all over flailing away and this guy was kick your hella back when the people pull them apart his last a couple of minutes and my father said to this man as he would tell the story I'm ready tell a thousand times and other told he's telling about it's an old story in there you dirty son of a he said God will punish you for putting hate in a heart of a child they pulled that away in the other fellow away and he came on home that night if
I drop dead well my dad used to say you know those son of a left me alone out in that town and on they read they'd never seen at you and they figured my god really had some connection up there and he used to laugh and say it never occurred any that probably would cause a heart attack he had a bad heart and the excitement of that incident and the fight tax it and he dropped dead that night and but they were just enough about that daddy's laughing say you know they left me alone for a long time no one one body one across Charlie
Strauss that's a delicious to it I don't want the story how did you as you got little bit older and start thinking about your future you were poor the family was poor but you went on to college was there ever any question but that you were going to Colin are there any question I go to car hug be a lawyer really yeah who made that this is my mother she'd always said when I was talking about those trips to Fort Worth on these Jewish holidays brother the uncles and aunts would all be sitting around having coffee cake smooching about something as they would call it
in those days in the living room and I'd come in and was about eight ten seven or eight years old and they say I had an uncle who spoke with an accent it said well here comes the governor you know everyone would laugh but not my mother she took it very seriously and I can still remember laughing at her and it me making a joke out of it but she always told him over and over over and there they all naughty my family my cousins now still remind me of that they too would be youngsters playing around and here comes the government did she see
law as an Avenue towards an avenue to be for political career and she always been for public career for me and you accepted that notion as inevitable I just assumed that I and it appealed to me I was always good with people and I a bit of a leader there were strong leader I was a late bloomer but I was I did well not scholastically but I did well other things I was always holding some title some kind in high school yeah and then great school I was never in athol much of an athlete and I never was much of a scholar but I was
always felt that some kind of quality of people related to a little bit the university of pittsburgh was the main choice the only literally texas texas i'm sorry yes never you know it's all going anywhere else I didn't it was a great great state of school and it was cheap first place you didn't want to go to the church schools I wasn't my mother thanks would go away and meet some associated more Jews John Jewish returned as you grants do that so it was just assume not going universe texts it was the cheapest place to go because a good school my parents weren't interested in
Harvard a yo-yo even if I'd had the grace to get in there and they had me the money and are frankly the intellectual interest in that you did join a Jewish portunity kids each one was it sigma alpha mu joined it again poor student in the university of texas and what support well i was a very pushy low end of my class I said always a low twenty-five percent of my class what was that my mother never thought I ought affect waste much time on studies you say don't study too hard he just gets you stomach upset anything to do is learn to live with
people and be strong and don't worry about these grades I'm really make any difference all you need to do is get enough to get that law degree I guess she was great and she was right but for me when I've been somebody else maybe you demanded more we'd have done better my brother and I later set up a little scholarship in our high school bike at Stanford in the requirement is it go to someone who do not have top grades and grades cannot be considered it's on tact here in leaders and the building it you know and I forgot it the tax had more do
it and nothing grades not do it I can't buy mother we're both for students and she thought she did it took a dim view of people study to merchant but you had a major in something that's both well long and there's an undergraduate dance on the graduate so you just had to go to undergrad school a couple of years and I went three the puzzle John you a little more maturity got a few more courses I'd probably fail to the courses need the extra year but you still got into law school yeah I wanted didn't take much and I good enough record get in law
school I took just about anybody then and I barely got our wall screaming and I never failing I think but I never but I was the bottom twenty percent of my class Milan law school you had a an eminent later eminent classmate at that time John Connolly yes how did you and he become friends what can't the University Texas we first became friends you were classmates were you he's ahead of me but we knew each other well we both acted in a political life school here's another for student and we were but we were both serve and leadership roles on things as kids on a
campus you know that works out so we were you active on campus politics oh yes very doing what just whatever you did I by to join that you know the right organizations about 12 to three twos ever taken in but an organization called cowboys and you know just and the things kids did but I had my friendships then spam Jewish most of the Jewish students around together and live together and went out together what was it though besides your your common interest in politics do you think that may you lead on Conley friends you seem like disparate kinds of people are it's time we were
not time we were very were both very we both were poor the both came to small towns we both had friends who were rich from the cities we both were rather recently attractive physically and intellectually we got along well people were both very popular he was not in the fraternity goob I was and reached leaders in our own group he was ahead of me he became president he student body I did you manage his campaign and all we were on the other side and he defeated thought his campaign I managed he and Conley then you must remember we were both all out for Roosevelt all
out for Johnson Lyndon Johnson colony in Iowa whether we were he worked for the National Youth administration which was Rosalie i worked at state capital for for a legislature and we both so right now in the political area we're both trying to eat our way through college and getting a little help from home in each age making a little money our own did you consider yourself a liberal at that time was all I the first clue campaign I really worked in was Lyndon Johnson for Congress i did with anything but hand out a few surfers in but I remember driving over Lockhart where I'd come
from and passing out circles for Lyndon Johnson you were 19 @ at times there yeah about that Connolly was then went on to work for Johnson he was a couple years ahead of me when Johnson found a gun into Congress he went up there two years later work for him and then after actually and the Johnson campaigns of the Senate John and I were thrown back together we were separated for years and then we work together politically I always under him he was close to Johnson he administ that worked with you and I work with well John then Connor came sectarian then we worked together
in China elect I nominate Johnson I was giving around a bit risky i'll feel the same yes leave I rather be mortally well we will certainly want to get back to that I did want to pick up after law school though when it was 1941 and I guess they're close to getting into into war you went with the FBI yeah how did that decision come about well FBI was interviewing everybody wanted to get in there when well first place we were not in war and they were drafting people like crazy and this job paid $265 a month and kept you out of draft and it
was a hero's job it was glamorous and those days the FBI was you dreamed of kill everybody was going to kill John Dillinger and uh and everyone was going to catch a spy and when they interviewed came down with Texas campus all of all students applied there most of that I say three fourths and they pictures too and again I was one of them stream enough and again without that record but i think i did well and obviously did well the interviews what made the difference in us convinced the filename acres Maurice acres I'm still remembers I should make good agent and so I was
invited to join the FBI telling a very Merry my wife and that money made possible how could you I want to divert just a moment from your career pursuits to ask you about how you met your wife you did marry her just about that time Eric University of Texas casual those kids me we're out the same place she had been one phone I have David another girl and you got together and liked each other we always went together we've been together forever we've never been away from each other very much since I guess 1937 money man she was encouraging of your joining the FBI but
she's encouraging anything I want it always has been there could not have been many Jewish FBI agents I like ours they're just a handful if you need some others whether some of the Gala's an answer all named Sidney Wolfe on you and one other song it's finally I'm Rosen without a big job in it and he's now based on probably reading you know Rosen the baseball player pleased to be a baseball player and then him and the front office in one of the demons our roles no reason but I rose and got in Sidney Wolfe and a couple of thousand me not about 3,000 agents
you did a good bit of traveling around as an agent their day more and I think you were hearing outlays to des moines and first wedding anniversary live in Council Bluffs Iowa lived in Cincinnati of short wall and moved to columbus and move from there back to Texas you were an FBI total of what I said four year did the traveling around to stand you in good stead everything standing just said my last been a great life and sooner at all learn everything I've done I've gained more than I've put into it I kind of enriched myself ever experienced I guess that was really as
I think about it the the first exposure to the rest of the country that you walk ahead although you've been to Europe I was reading my first exposure matter of fact I got a lot more out of the FBI and I put into it and it's there I'm accurate until that's till I finish the FBI I really was a late bloomer I've described myself but I really was but when I got out of the FBI I learned a lot and I hit the ground running kinds of things did you there I don't know I just matured it's almost as if they pull the curtain back
and I was really understood what was what kind of set with what the play was all about so just being a foggy bunch of voices finally that all the clouds lifted away hell I began to understand this thing it was this world and on your the world and which I could compete and I think having to be four years in FBI was very selective people and managed to hang on again not starring but doing reasonably well did you have some exciting or significant cases Oh Madge ination now leads me to believe I have you hear me told now they're very excited with the time I
think of pretty mundane some of them were rather interesting but the main thing was I matured I sound were cured at a time on the government's payroll and not in the army two or three times I thought I should quit the FBI but Hoover had you frozen then when you couldn't get in the service not what I want to be brave but because I thought I I ought to be doing it maybe and risking my life rather than being a more secure job or what did you have that feeling I don't know I guess it's a rose in those days there's a lot of patriotism
round and many of us at the ice think that even though we were told we were doing more than I would you do anywhere else but more valuable month we did it won an Assessor us I guess we need a uniform because the flags plays and we're ashamed about having one but you were tracking down Nazi agents well yes but yes it was a role but it's awful out other paperwork stuff to it you didn't realize the army was like that to you vent plugging away on typewriter an army so but it we were kids and held on our kids home and I just told
that a great deal again you say whatever you want to do the the notion the public concept of the FBI at that time was quite different very high what it was laid on your hero when we came out of the FBI I used to make speeches around Dallas everybody want you to speak because you ruin heroes like i stir hall in town kind of stories of the FBI and the Kiwanis and Rotary Club is PTA and as a young lawyer I was anxious to establish myself and so I made speeches and the number of other FBI use were backward back in Dallas then the war
was over and we all were writing speech at least then coffee in the morning to tell about stories we told about ford speech today real like they're all I of course i exaggerating and with I tell story that appeared for another thought you can't put yourself in a little bit and put you in their stores years later we sit around laughing we really couldn't tell I couldn't remember what we'd actually done or what would exaggerate it and the truth is a murder the fiction version of the truth and it all came true and this is this is where we're this is where it stops did
you have any really significant case than the FBI oh yes yes I think we have significant cases but they want to counting me anything now but you may I think sometimes be on a stakeout for somebody with she's exciting a kidnap case worked on Exile I remember reading the first time over the file and something realized there was an atomic project going forward and a highly secret enforcing know when you that was for two years before the bomb went off I'd been when I was in plum asylum ever being assigned trade old man across the country who was suspected of being a espionage agent and
follow him as he dug everybody he dealt with then we checked him out building a the kind of route all the routes our place he touched several cases you know things like that but it's other they were exciting indeed girl and the fact that you were dead you're going to lose them you know and what Hoover would do if you feel we're all so scared of what the director would do if he were to lose them all used to say the humor was a fella who those days he's a much better man I think that he was his last few years and it came arrogant
difficult impossible almost but he was a tough man even in those days but he was able I used to study the Helen that it was a system devised by genius to be carried out about much fools like me and the system worked have you covered me to be oh yeah well how could he come across to you scared that I break out cold sweat and in later life there was let him that later got to going socially realized it would not be very scared of he was an insecure little manic so well you used that FBI experience to some extent to make yourself known get
your law practice started tell me about starting up a law firm that must have been a terrific challenge well while I didn't we have a lot of alternatives aya my dick gump and I have been looking for a job they don't want too much one of the canoe when I was much want to go to work for an old firm who was thick oak dumpy was my partner and i farmed the firm with how are you doing him and I had gone to law school together well look pretty law law and win FB I got it I got the same places but we always been
friends and still are very close so I ran come on street one day and I said Gump I'm thinking my phone off no parole officer but offense if I had a gut trapped with me and he did said he didn't he had about eight thousand dollars in stocks that he heard in his parents my father-in-law agreed the guarantee a note from me for ten thousand dollars so we had between us and i still have been caused by 400 month to live in those days so we I asked you thousand I always save the FBI so we feel we had enough to last a couple years
what little would make supplementary income by then we'll be making a living and we were just about right we started making a living just about time or money is getting run out what kinds of cases did you feel the first divorces guy in jail for hot chicken prosecute somebody anything anything that they paid ten dollars or more and then we cater get a business matter I've met people in town I'm getting business matters and when I got a chance to do work the average businessman a little work while we do it better and using cheaper we worked hard coming I did we were good and
our client practice for him to grow and people again I think I was a two young men and their hard work and energetic and got you money for us did you build up to fair much effect Lee way I said goo that we are then pressing law on my own since enacting