Senator Henry M. Jackson, 1912-1983: Jackson Remembered

The following excerpts, taken from the sound recordings in the Henry M. Jackson Papers, present a diverse range of personal remembrances of Senator Jackson and perspectives on his life and legacy.

Click on the links below to listen to sound recordings of those who knew and admired Jackson politically and personally.

“We came here in 1973 and went to Richmond, Virginia. We wanted to come over here long, long ago, but we were waiting for a good moment, the right moment, to come over. It was Senator Jackson’s and Vanik’s Amendment which really allowed us to do it at last. And we came to Washington in 1974, in the beginning of 1974. We wanted to see Senator Jackson and to tell him that we love him and we are very grateful to him that we were able to do it at last.” (listen)

-Sonya Goldberg [i]

“He has never, virtually never, in thirty years, voted against any money appropriation, and how he does this, I wish I knew. It’d be a very valuable thing to know. And no, I don’t consider him an innovator at all. He’s a remarkable man in his ability to convince conservatives that he is a true conservative and at the same time maintain a large amount of the so-called liberal vote.” (listen)

-Charles W. Elicker [iii]

“Senator Jackson made absolutely no effort, as far as I could see, to do anything for the state of Washington other than to get us deeper in the hole on our dependence on aerospace. Senator Jackson as chairman of the Senate Interior Committee has done really very, very little to further develop the irrigation projects, for instance, in Eastern Washington." (listen)

-Charles W. Elicker [iv]

“We are here because of Senator Jackson-because of his amendment, which put pressure on the Soviet government. And something unbelievable happened. They allowed Jewish people to immigrate. It was an exodus, and that’s why I consider Senator Henry Jackson a modern-day Moses. And when I saw him, I told that to him, but he didn’t react, and now I understand why. He was a very modest person.” (listen)

-Boris Goldberg [v]

“The real hallmark of Scoop’s character that enabled him to bring people together from spots on the political spectrum that you might not ordinarily think could get together were consistency and common sense, in my judgment. People knew that he was talking from the heart, what he believed, and that what he believed had a very high quotient of common sense.” (listen)

-Ben Wattenberg

“Scoop really started the whole human rights push in the United States and American foreign policy, I guess in the 1970s, with the talk and the development of the idea of the Jackson Amendment. Where really for the first time we said, Look, our foreign policy is not just involved in what the geopoliticians call ‘our interests’, but that it also has a moral dimension.” (listen)

-Ben Wattenberg

“I think Scoop’s real pull on the people of Washington State was something that was developed not literally on a one-on-one but almost on a one-one. You walk around the state, and most people honestly believe they were good friends of Senator Jackson’s.”

“I think Scoop had the essential qualities to be President. I think in a term or two as President, he also would have been able to reach out to the American people the way he did as a Congressman and as a Senator and would have established a rapport with folks. I think he had the essential understandings of how to solve problems, the essential understandings of government functions that presidents need.” (listen)

-Representative Al Swift

“Scoop always acted out of a very deep personal commitment to the ideals and goals that he was identified with. He didn’t calculate these things in a political way; he wasn’t supporting conservation or strong natural security or the interests of the elderly, because he thought that there were human rights, or because he thought that there was some particular political benefit in that. He did it out of a deep sense of belief and a strong background of support for those positions, sometimes when they weren’t fashionable and in fact when they were taken at some political risk.” (listen)

-Representative Tom Foley

“Another side of Scoop Jackson that I don’t think people quite realize was his work, other than in foreign affairs and human rights, his work on the environment. He was the first to talk about national parks. He’d be the first to be zealous about the boundaries, not expansion, and here in the state, he was the leader in the establishment of many of the parks we have.” (listen)

-Senator Warren G. Magnuson

“Today in Grant County as a result of the Columbia Basin Project, which Senator Jackson worked so diligently on, being on the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, we have over 42% of all the surface water in Eastern Washington east of the Cascade Mountains in Grant County, which encompasses the Columbia Basin Project, and that in itself has brought employment, tourist dollars . . . by all these lakes for hunting, fishing, boating, water skiing, and the many other things that go along with recreation.” (listen)

-Roy Mundy

Image: University of Washington, Special Collections

“He always has a great deal of money to spend, and in last year’s case a good part of it was given to him by Republicans. Now one thing, although he calls himself a Democrat, he’s always consorting with Republicans.” (listen)

-Alice Franklin Bryant [ii]

  “Scoop during his service in the Senate and really primarily from ‘62 onward when he was chairman of the Senate Interior Committee, which is now the Senate Energy Committee, had a tremendous impact on the quality of the nation’s environment, its recreational resources, in the form of new national parks, new wildernesses, new wild and scenic rivers. The inventory of these areas increased, doubled, even tripled, during his period in the Senate.” (listen)

-Bill Van Ness

“I think in the long view of history and his record that his powerful influence in awakening the country to the vital importance of our resources and the quality of our environment will be the most important thing he did. After all, he understood and believed that our standard of living, the quality of our life, was determined by the status of our resources: air, water, soil, forests, minerals, scenic beauty. And he understood very well that you can’t have a country that’s well off and prosperous if it dissipates its capital resources…” (listen)

-Gaylord Nelson

“In a profession long on ego, politics, and in an institution, the Senate, that really does specialize in ego this was a man who clearly was so at home with himself and with his vocation that he knew that his ego was not the point. The public business was the point. And it sustained him and gave him the most extraordinary energy. He wasn’t wasting his energy worrying about pride and place and circumstances and pomp. And therefore he could do things in a day that would leave younger men panting and gasping in his wake.” (listen)

-George Will

“It was Scoop’s fate to live in the worst of times, the high moments of totalitarian power and success in the twentieth century. He was the son of immigrant Norwegian parents and never forgot his first encounter with the Norway that had been conquered by the Nazis, because the democracies didn’t believe they were in danger and wouldn’t prepare for defense. And he brought to our politics a unique combination and a necessary one: a concern for social justice in this country as an absolute corollary to a concern for oppression and injustice abroad.” (listen)

-Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan

“I think that one of Jackson's main concerns, of course, was the Pacific economy, and he was hoping to integrate America more and more into the economies and the prosperity of East Asian countries. And in looking for ways to do this, of course, he was hoping to improve state-to-state relations, as the United States did with China, while he was powerful in Washington, but also he was interested in helping things like set up the Jackson School and fellowships like the Jackson Fellowship, to provide practical training in languages, politics, economy, so on.” (listen)

-Matthew Sommer, Jackson Fellowship recipient

[i]3560-033, item 3560_23_1_Clip.mp3 [1:24 to 2:25]: Posthumous, 1984-1987 : Sync sound reels for the posthumous film, "SCOOP", 1987 March, Boris and Sonya Goldberg, part 1

3560-033, item 3560_17_83_1a_Clip.mp3 [7:56 to 8:27]: Senate, 1971-1976 : Views of U.S. Senator Jackson
by Washington State residents on the occasion of his presidential campaign announcement, 1971-1972 : Part 1

[iii]3560-033, item 3560_17_83_1b_Clip.mp3 [16:06 to 17:07]: Senate, 1971-1976 : Views of U.S. Senator Jackson by Washington State residents on the occasion of his presidential campaign announcement, 1971-1972 : Part 1

[iv] 3560-033, item 3560_17_83_1h_Clip.mp3 [22:30 to 23:08]: Senate, 1971-1976 : Views of U.S. Senator Jackson by Washington State residents on the occasion of his presidential campaign announcement, 1971-1972 : Part 1

[v] 3560-033, item 3560_23_2_Clip.mp3 [12:05 to 12:50]: Posthumous, 1984-1987 : Sync sound reels for the posthumous film, "SCOOP", 1987 March, Boris and Sonya Goldberg, part 2

[vi] 3560-033, item 3560_23_3a_Clip.mp3 [1:56 to 3:11]: Posthumous, 1984-1987 : Sync sound reels for the posthumous film, "SCOOP", 1987 March, Boris and Sonya Goldberg, Ben Wattenberg

[vii] 3560-033, item 3560_23_3b_Clip.mp3 [4:44 to 5:30]: Posthumous, 1984-1987 : Sync sound reels for the posthumous film, "SCOOP", 1987 March, Boris and Sonya Goldberg, Ben Wattenberg

[viii] 3560-033, item 3560_23_4_Clip.mp3 [12:37 to 13:40]: Posthumous, 1984-1987 : Sync sound reels for the posthumous film, "SCOOP", 1987 March, Ben Wattenburg, Bill Van Ness

[ix] 3560-033, item 3560_23_5_Clip.mp3 [13:13 to 14:16]: Posthumous, 1984-1987 : Sync sound reels for the posthumous film, "SCOOP", 1987 March, Bill Van Ness, Gaylord Nelson

[x] 3560-033, item 3560_23_6_Clip.mp3 [9:29 to 11:44] Posthumous, 1984-1987 : Sync sound reels for the posthumous film, "SCOOP", 1987 March, Gaylord Nelson, George Will

[xi] 3560-033, item 3560_23_7a_Clip.mp3 [9:00 to 9:54]: Posthumous, 1984-1987 : Sync sound reels for the posthumous film, "SCOOP", 1987 March, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Representative Al Swift

[xii] 3560-033, item 3560_23_7b_Clip.mp3 [13:12 to 13:34]: Posthumous, 1984-1987 : Sync sound reels for the posthumous film, "SCOOP", 1987 March, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Representative Al Swift

[xiii] 3560-033, item 3560_23_8a_Clip.mp3 [1:30 to 2:01]: Posthumous, 1984-1987 : Sync sound reels for the posthumous film, "SCOOP", 1987 March, Representative Al Swift, Representative Tom Foley

[xiv] 3560-033, item 3560_23_8b_Clip.mp3 [4:28 to 5:19]: Posthumous, 1984-1987 : Sync sound reels for the posthumous film, "SCOOP", 1987 March, Representative Al Swift, Representative Tom Foley

[xv] 3560-033, item <3560_23_9_Clip.mp3 [6:28 to 7:04]: Posthumous, 1984-1987 : Sync sound reels for the posthumous film, "SCOOP", 1987 March, Senator Warren G. Magnuson

3560-033, item 3560_23_11_Clip.mp3 [10:10 to 10:47]: Posthumous, 1984-1987 : Sync sound reels for the posthumous film, "SCOOP", 1987 March, Jackson Fellowship recipient, Matthew Sommer, Madame Liu

[xvii] 3560-033, item 3560_23_12_Clip.mp3 [10:42 to 11:19]: Posthumous, 1984-1987 : Sync sound reels for the posthumous film, "SCOOP", 1987 March, Jackson Fellowship recipient, Madame Liu, Roy Mundy?