Publisher deal reached!

I have reached agreement with the prestigious University Press of New England to publish the Claiborne Pell biography. The book will be on the publisher's Fall 2011 list, which means we can expect lots of attention starting in about September, quite possibly with a book launch in Newport, the senator's home.
I am delighted with publisher UPNE, a consortium of the Dartmouth College, Northeastern University, University of Vermont, University of New Hampshire and Brandeis University presses with a distinguished list of titles and a powerful marketing reach in the region and beyond (and partnerships with other publishers). The editorial board and marketing and sales people at UPNE are enthusiastically behind the book, which portends good things! More details as they emerge...

Pell Awards, June 19, 2010

I attended the Pell Awards at The Foundry in Providence as guests of Nuala and Dallas Pell. Liza Minnelli was honored for lifetime achievement in the arts, and a crowd of more than 400 turned out for the event, which has benefited the Trinity Repertory Company since the first award, the year after Claiborne's retirement. Besides Nuala and her daughter, Grandson Clay attended (pictured with his grandmother and aunt), along with longtime aides Jan Demers (pictured with Clay and Minnelli) and Dennis Riley and his wife, Senators Jack Reed (who was instrumental in the biography) and Sheldon Whitehouse Academy Award-nominated actor Richard Jenkins, Providence mayor David Cicilline, and many more. With me in the photo beneath the poster of Pell is Yolanda.

Long ago...

Nuala and Claiborne are by the sea, one of their favorite places, in this uncaptioned photo from Dennis Riley's superb collection. My educated guess is that it was 1960s, on the rocks along their property in Newport. This joins the wonderful shot of the Pells in their automobile in 1960 as one of my favorite Claiborne/Nuala shots.
-- Photo courtesy of Dennis P. Riley.

A beautiful rendition of Claiborne

Christina Pell, Claiborne's granddaughter, is an exceptionally talented artist (and, like her father, the late Bertie), a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. As i wrap up A VERY DIFFERENT SENATOR, Christina is contributing a story or two for the biography, and she sent a link to this wonderful painting of her grandfather toward the end of his long life. Thanks, Christina.
Here's a link to some of her other work on Facebook.

Last term, last stage of writing...

I have completed the first draft of my biography, having just finished the epilogue. Am now editing and fact-checking. The end of the book, of course, chronicles the end of Pell's years in the Senate, and the end of his life, when Parkinson's claimed him.
Here is a shot of him at the Capitol during his last term, which ran from 1991 (having beaten Claudine Schneider) until 1997. Isn't this a stately photograph? Thanks again to Dennis Riley, whose contributions have been enormous.
-- Photo courtesy of Dennis P. Riley.

Mandela and Pell

Pell was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during some of his final term in office -- the realization of a long dream. Here he is with Nelson Mandela, one of many world leaders he met as chairman, and during the years before, when he worked in his trademark low-key style toward his goal of world peace.
-- Photo courtesy of Dennis P. Riley.

Hideaway

Pell loved his hideaway office in the U.S. Capitol. There, he was surrounded by his books and photographs and paintings of his father and family members, and treasured mementos from his many campaigns. There, he greeted special visitors. There, he was in his element.
-- Photo courtesy of Dennis P. Riley.

Chairs Senate Foreign Relations

Pell realized his long-time ambition of chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when the Democrats resumed control of the Senate in the 1986 mid-term elections. One of his most important roles would be shepherding the intermediate-range nuclear missile treaty (INF) to ratification -- a critical advance in his even longer-held dream of world peace. Here he is chairing the committee when debate opened on January 25, 1988. Secretary of State George P. Shultz is testifying. Long-time Pell nemesis Jesse Helms sits to the chairman's left.
-- Photo courtesy of Dennis P. Riley.

Teddy and Claiborne

Ted Kennedy eulogized his friend Claiborne at Pell's funeral in January 2009 -- the last major public address that he gave. The two were longtime buddies, in the Senate and in their personal lives. Here's a wonderful shot of the two in the 1960s.
-- Photo courtesy of Dennis Riley

Pell, and Presidents three

Throughout his career, of course, Pell had many occasions to be with the commander-in-chief; two, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, who eulogized Pell at his funeral, were also personal friends. Here he is in the late 1970s with President Jimmy Carter, and past presidents Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon, whom Ford had pardoned for his Watergate transgressions.
If you haven't already, don't forget to join the Facebook Pell biography page!

That different Pell look...

As the '70s progressed, Claiborne became increasingly known not only for his legislative accomplishments -- but also how he dressed which was, well, different. He wore his late father's clothes, even though Herbert was many sizes bigger, and when he took his daily jogs, he looked like... he looked like this. Running shoes, socks and shorts; topped with a suit jacket (I'm guessing from his Princeton days), and a shirt and tie. The chapter I am writing now gets into this other side of Pell in detail, and I am enjoying it immensely...

The third term begins...

After his 1972 reelection victory over John Chafee, Pell returned to Washington with an ambitious agenda, and his new look. The look symbolized a new period in his life, the subject (among others) of Chapter Six, which I am now writing.
Here is a photo of Pell in the fall of 1973.

Celebration at the Pell Center

Last night, family and friends of Claiborne Pell joined Pell Grant recipients at Salve Regina University's Pell Center for a celebration of the grant program and the winner of the first Legacy Award: Rochelle Denisha Gregory, who told her extraordinarily compelling story. A documentary film crew including producer Elyse Katz was on hand; Elyse, director Steve Feinberg and Pell grandson Clay are making a film about the success of the Pell Grants (I am serving as consultant). A great evening in Newport.
Pictured are: Nuala on the "set," actually a reconstruction of Pell's hideaway office (note the painting of Nuala and Claiborne on the wall); Clay, daughter Dallas, granddaughter Tripler, Nuala and former Congressman Louis Stokes, who served 30 years with Pell; Elyse, Dallas and others on the set; a view of Nuala before the camera, Steve back to me; and Rochelle at the podium.

Nuala on the campaign trail

Have finally finished Chapter 5, likely to be the longest chapter. The focus is the Pell Grants, Pell's opposition to the Vietnam War, and his tough 1972 reelection race against John Chafee. He won, of course, with a strategy that called on his wife to again hit the trail, as she had so effectively in 1960 (the 1966 race was a blowout). Nuala impressed the people (and media) that she met during speeches and door-to-door campaigning. Here she is leaving a house in October 1972. Note the Pell literature in her hand. And that white picket fence is so '50s (and early '70s).

Pell Grants; a 'Titanic Struggle'

The year 1972 was one of the busiest for Pell. It was the year he finally realized his ambition of a college-aid program that would come to be called the Pell Grants, an ambition accomplished in the thick of angry debate over busing; the year he began as a huge underdog for reelection against John Chafee, a campaign The Providence Journal rightly caleld a "Titanic Struggle"; and the year his mother died. I am writing all this now in the longest chapter yet of the bio.
When the year was over, Pell grew a mustache. Here's a shot of him wearing it. A very different look for A Very Different Senator.
And also, a flyer from the 1972 campaign. A very clever pun of a slogan, "Pell: When you stop to think."

Against the Vietnam War

Pell was a leading critic of the Vietnam War, and his open break with LBJ in a 1967 major Senate speech made headlines everywhere -- and drew a deluge of letters, some supporting him and others slamming him as an unpatriotic pinko-Commie. And then came his secret mission to Paris, which I am writing now...
Pell's vocal opposition brought him into direct conflict with LBJ, whose otherwise brilliant legacy (on domestic issues) was forever tarnished by his escalation of the war. Here is Pell in 1967, posing with a painting of our first president.

Wins again!

Pell won his first reelection, against Ruth Briggs, in 1966 with almost 70 percent of the vote. Here he is reading the Providence Evening Bulletin on Nov. 9, the day after the election.
Trivia point: I remember the Evening Bulletin well, since I wrote for it back in the days when the Projo had two editions. In fact, I wrote the very last deadline story for the Bulletin, in 1992, about a small fire.

National Endowment for the Arts

What a trip through history this week of writing has been -- the Berlin and Cuban Crises, the Cold War, JFK's assassination (on Pell's 45th birthday), all of which is grim. Fallout shelters and duck-and-cover, which I remember from when I was a kid, were very unsettling. And then there was the Vietnam War.
But the '60s were also a time of great hope, especially as the decade wore on. Pell played a large role in that -- he was an optimist by nature -- and one of his lasting contributions to the greatness of what the human spirit can be was in his critical role in establishing the National Endowment for the Arts, and also the Humanities. Am writing that passage now, and came across this great quote from LBJ at the 1965 swearing-in of the members of the new National Council on the Arts:
“I believe that a world of creation and thought is at the very core of civilization and that our civilization will largely survive in the works of our creations. That quality, as I have said many times before, confirms the faith that our common hope may be much more enduring than our conflicting hostilities, and I want that each hour of the things that we do will be enduring. Right now, the men of affairs are struggling to catch up with the insights of great art. The stakes may very well be the survival of our entire society.”
The photo is Pell with the president at about that time.

First year in office

I have now completed the biography through Pell's election to the Senate in 1960, a year in which he stunned the Democratic establishment by winning a three-way primary and then went on to bury his Republican opponent in the general election. I am currently writing what will be Chapter Four, about Pell's first term, during which he led the effort to create the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, which rank with the Pell Grants among his greatest achievements. Here is the freshman senator in the summer of 1961 in Washington, the Senate Building, speaking to some people from Rhode Island.

Ordered to Italy for war duty

In 1943, the Vice chief of Naval Operations ordered Coast Guard lieutenant Claiborne Pell to Italy, where Pell, a recent graduate of a military-administration course at Columbia University, would help in rebuilding the war-torn Italian fishing fleet. This is the confidential memo that sent him on his way.
Image courtesy of Special Collections, University of Rhode Island Library.

Princeton girlfriend

Claiborne was a handsome young man, with no shortage of opportunities for dates. Here he is with "Missy," a girlfriend in 1940, the year he graduated from Princeton. His scrapbook has more photos of Missy, whose last name I have been unable to learn. Anyone out there know?
I found this photo while writing Chapter Two, which begins with ancestor Pells and ends with Claiborne entering the Coast Guard in 1941. It's a long and (hopefully) fascinating chapter, but I am nearly done.The photo is contained in Pell's personal scrapbook, Volume 2, which covers mostly his college years.
Isn't this another great one? I get lost in time, literally, going through Pell's early life...
Image courtesy of Nuala Pell.