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Interview With Jack Bass

Aired December 16, 2003 - 14:37   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Jack Bass is the author of "Ol' Strom." When he's not writing entertaining political biographies, he's a professor at the College of Charleston, South Carolina.
Jack Bass is here to talk to us about the worst-kept secret, I guess you could say, in South Carolina. Strom Thurmond's illegitimate daughter. Jack, good to see you.

JACK BASS, AUTHOR, PROFESSOR: Good to be here.

PHILLIPS: Well, I have a question for you. Let's set up the moral picture. Does this whole story tell us that, hey, Strom Thurmond, he wasn't racist? Or, does this tell us, OK, this guy was pretty heinous?

BASS: No, I think Strom Thurmond really was not a racist. I think he got the segregationist image from his 1948 campaign for president when he said there are not enough troops in the Army to force the Southern people to accept the Negro race and into their homes and into their schools and into their churches and into their swimming pools. And he said it in his acceptance speech.

But earlier, Thurmond had been centered the liberal governor of South Carolina. He gave a very intense prosecution to the last lynching case in South Carolina, last case of lynching. He called for and got increased spending for public education for both whites and blacks. And he changed in 1948, when President Truman issued a reports on civil rights, that Thurmond, I think, saw both political opportunity there and also, I think his sort of sense of Southern honor that somehow the South was being singled out.

He was a traditional paternalist of segregation, but then it became a political issue.

PHILLIPS: Why do you think that it took so long for her to come forward and to talk?

BASS: I think clearly they had an understanding between the two of them that as long as he lived, the story would be that they're old family friends.

I interviewed her in Los Angeles in 1997, and once she realized what I was in for, I had written her a letter, then she said, Oh, oh, we're old family friends. Old family friends, that the all.

I did learn at the time, she was a great-grandmother. Now she has four grade grandchildren. And he acknowledged to her that he was her father. And she didn't want to hurt him politically and there was an understanding and he also provided financial support.

But in terms of the culture as it existed at the time this event occurred, her birth in 1925 -- you have to remember, Strom Thurmond was born a year before the Wright brothers flew the first airplane. Everybody in the South was segregationist because it was a way of life. It was legally imposed.

PHILLIPS: Looking a back at the relations he had with Essie Mae Washington-Williams, how do you think it affected his political career, the decisions he made? I mean so many people saw him as a segregationist.

BASS: That was his image and he was indeed a segregationist at least in terms of political defense of segregation, as was virtually every other political figure in the South. Blacks weren't voting in those days.

And -- but, you know, some people say, well, it's pure hypocrisy on his part. I think it represents hypocrisy but really a hypocrisy of the culture itself as existed at that time. The South is very much changed today.

PHILLIPS: Jack Bass, the book is "Ol' Strom." You were talking at this before the media. Thank you so much, Jack.

BASS: All right.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired December 16, 2003 - 14:37   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Jack Bass is the author of "Ol' Strom." When he's not writing entertaining political biographies, he's a professor at the College of Charleston, South Carolina.
Jack Bass is here to talk to us about the worst-kept secret, I guess you could say, in South Carolina. Strom Thurmond's illegitimate daughter. Jack, good to see you.

JACK BASS, AUTHOR, PROFESSOR: Good to be here.

PHILLIPS: Well, I have a question for you. Let's set up the moral picture. Does this whole story tell us that, hey, Strom Thurmond, he wasn't racist? Or, does this tell us, OK, this guy was pretty heinous?

BASS: No, I think Strom Thurmond really was not a racist. I think he got the segregationist image from his 1948 campaign for president when he said there are not enough troops in the Army to force the Southern people to accept the Negro race and into their homes and into their schools and into their churches and into their swimming pools. And he said it in his acceptance speech.

But earlier, Thurmond had been centered the liberal governor of South Carolina. He gave a very intense prosecution to the last lynching case in South Carolina, last case of lynching. He called for and got increased spending for public education for both whites and blacks. And he changed in 1948, when President Truman issued a reports on civil rights, that Thurmond, I think, saw both political opportunity there and also, I think his sort of sense of Southern honor that somehow the South was being singled out.

He was a traditional paternalist of segregation, but then it became a political issue.

PHILLIPS: Why do you think that it took so long for her to come forward and to talk?

BASS: I think clearly they had an understanding between the two of them that as long as he lived, the story would be that they're old family friends.

I interviewed her in Los Angeles in 1997, and once she realized what I was in for, I had written her a letter, then she said, Oh, oh, we're old family friends. Old family friends, that the all.

I did learn at the time, she was a great-grandmother. Now she has four grade grandchildren. And he acknowledged to her that he was her father. And she didn't want to hurt him politically and there was an understanding and he also provided financial support.

But in terms of the culture as it existed at the time this event occurred, her birth in 1925 -- you have to remember, Strom Thurmond was born a year before the Wright brothers flew the first airplane. Everybody in the South was segregationist because it was a way of life. It was legally imposed.

PHILLIPS: Looking a back at the relations he had with Essie Mae Washington-Williams, how do you think it affected his political career, the decisions he made? I mean so many people saw him as a segregationist.

BASS: That was his image and he was indeed a segregationist at least in terms of political defense of segregation, as was virtually every other political figure in the South. Blacks weren't voting in those days.

And -- but, you know, some people say, well, it's pure hypocrisy on his part. I think it represents hypocrisy but really a hypocrisy of the culture itself as existed at that time. The South is very much changed today.

PHILLIPS: Jack Bass, the book is "Ol' Strom." You were talking at this before the media. Thank you so much, Jack.

BASS: All right.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com