Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.). has been a fixture in the Senate for decades, holding key leadership positions and landing ample federal funds for his home state of West Virginia. Despite his respected tenure in the Senate, Byrd is also impacted by his former association with the Ku Klux Klan. In his new book, "Robert C. Byrd: Child of the Appalachian Coalfields," the Senator describes his childhood in West Virginia and his career in the Senate.
Washington Post Deputy National Editor for Congress Eric Pianin was online Monday, June 20, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss Senator Byrd 's memoirs.
Read more: A Senator's Shame.
A transcript follows.
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Anonymous: I will never forget Senator Byrd's appearance on Larry King Live in February of 2003. It was a monumental appearance to dissuade the country from invading Iraq.
As we have seen, Senator Byrd's wisdom has been proven over tenfold. This White House should be impeached.
Please thank Senator Byrd for his courageous career.
Eric Pianin: You are right that Sen. Byrd offered the clearest and strongest arguments against entry into the war against Iraq and remains one of the Senate's most articulate critics of U.S. military intervention.
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Anonymous: Dear Mr. Pianin,
There is a well sourced quote of Senator Byrd's in 1952 where he said he had not "been interested" in the Klan or "nine years" which would be 1943.
So why is he lying about that when he clearly wrote Samuel Green in 1946, according to Byrd's story up till now?
In 1947 he then writes a letter calling African Americans "mud people" and other epitaphs, and then goes on about how he would never serve along side a Negro, etc.
Why is Byrd getting a free pass on this when it is so obvious that Byrd has been more than "interested", and in reality been very active?
He can't possibly be trying to say now that the Green letter was written in 1941? He wasn't even Imperial Wizard yet. So there are two letters now, or Byrd is now lying about the year of the Green letter and pushing it back to 1941 from 1946.
Also, Byrd has tried to say he was in the Klan for only a "few months", but it is clear from another 1941 letter to Green and Byrd saying he left the Klan in 1943 makes 2 years not 2 months.
Thank you very much and please follow up with Byrd on his huge timeline gaffs.
Eric Pianin: I think you are right that Sen. Byrd's new book offers a very truncated and incomplete description of the extent of his involvement in the Klan during the 1940's. I think that in writing his memoir, the senator is eager to secure his place in history as a champion of West Virginia and a leader on the national stage -- and doesn't want to belabor a sorry chapter in his life. But as he explained to me last week, he didn't intend for the book to provide "finite details" of his role as a Klan organizer, but to show young readers that there are serious consequences to one's choices in life.
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Charleston, W.V.: What about the whole Samuel Green letter discrepancy? Didn't you find that interesting?
Eric Pianin: I did find that interesting, especially because that discrepancy became such a big issue in Byrd's first campaign for the U.S. House in 1952. Once the truth came out, many of Byrd's Democratic supporters urged him to drop out of the race. He refused and prevailed in the general election.
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Harrisonburg, Va.: I'm curious whether The Post was getting pressure from the right wing to do a story on Byrd's ancient past. I think the book gave you a perfectly legitimate opening to discuss his KKK membership, but I also wonder whether you were looking for a hook to address the question. (My view is that, reprehensible as his membership was, it happened 60 years ago and Byrd -- to his enormous credit -- has evolved greatly as a human being.)
Eric Pianin: That's an interesting question. But the truth is, we didn't get any pressure from the right (or any other quarter) to do a story about Sen. Byrd's long-ago involvement in the Klan. I simply felt it was a terribly interesting and important issue that has dogged Byrd throughout his career -- even this year, when he fought the Republicans over the question of filibustering judicial nominations. Over the past 30 years or so, The Post has made passing reference to Byrd's Klan past but never explored it in any detail. I thought now would be a good time to do that, with publication of his book.
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Washington, D.C.: He seems an incredible windbag. Would he prefer that all federal agencies relocate to West Virginia? (If you say no, you don't know the Byrd man). Mandatory retirement, please, in the U.S. Senate.
Eric Pianin: There is a wonderful political cartoon reproduced in his book showing Byrd being interrogated by two cops with a light dangling overhead, and the caption reads: "Senator, we just want to know where you took the Lincoln Memorial and Senate Office Building." There's no question that Byrd was highly successful in moving federal offices and jobs to economically depressed cities and towns in West Virginia.
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Anonymous: Is this supposed to be a bash Byrd chat? Did he or did he NOT renounce his youth indiscretions? At least youthful for him was youthful and not 50 years old as Henry Hyde's youthful indiscretion.
Eric Pianin: He did renounce his involvement with the Klan -- and has done it over and over throughout his career. And I agree with you, he has had a remarkable career, spanning 10 presidencies. And perhaps the most remarkable thing is that he overcame his past to twice win election as Senate majority leader, in a party that was dominated by such liberal voices as Hubert Humphrey and Edward M. Kennedy.
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Staunton, Va.: Yes, but don't you think by leaving out this rather large contradiction that we are not helping those same young people? Are we not contributing to a mythology if we don't show Byrd warts and all?
Eric Pianin: I agree with you, which is why we did the story.
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Arlington, Va.: If anything, Byrd is an example of how one doesn't have to face the consequences of one's actions. He still has not faced up to his active involvement in the Klan, including the "race mongrels" memo. He can keep saying he's owned up to his past, but that doesn't make it true.
Eric Pianin: Thanks for your observation.
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Front Royal, Va.: Having grown up in West Virginia, I know how much Sen. Byrd is admired. His past has little influence on the voters. I have a comment and a question. The article stated 55 counties separated from Virginia. This is not true. Some counties were formed after statehood. Check out the names Grant and Lincoln. Did you deliberately schedule this discussion on West Virginia Day?
Eric Pianin: We scheduled publication of the article to coincide with the formal publication of his book.
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Charleston, W.V.: You did a great job at unearthing so much data from Byrd's past. And what Byrd did in the past is done, bad as it was when it came to the filibustering of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. If you haven't read any of his speeches from that filibuster, I encourage you to look at them sometime. He sounds quite like an unreconstructed rebel.
My question is: Isn't this latest book of Byrd's at least something of a cover up of his racist past? I know that the book covers far more than the race question, but it's HE who is bringing it up on his own free will. It seems as though we're definitely getting more spin than truth out of the Senator on the race issue.
Eric Pianin: It's true that the book is very selective in its recitation of his career, and there are many gaps in his description of his motives and tactics. For example, he gives a very cursory discussion of his opposition to the landmark 1964 civil rights legislation, saying only that he opposed it on constitutional grounds and giving no flavor of his involvement in the southern filibuster of the legislation. Today, he says he regrets having done that, but the reader learns very little about his role from his book. Not surprisingly, he greatly downplays his Klan role as an issue, although he came up time and time again throughout his career.
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Centerville, Va.: Why didn't you explore the use of the filibuster - a recent hot topic in the Senate - by Byrd and other to thwart and delay civil rights legislation?
Eric Pianin: That's an important topic, but wasn't the focus of the story, and thus got only a passing mention.
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Lexington, Va.: I think I understand, now, Mr. Pianin, your mention that Byrd's story is one of transformation and redemption. When I read that, it came across as your opinion. But really, it's just what happened to him. He was transformed into a Senate leader, having been a redneck Senator previously .But that doesn't mean he had any kind of real inner transformation. He was "redeemed" by the public, by the media, by others...but we don't really know what's in his heart. Actions speak louder than words, and he still hasn't shown much to African-Americans other than contempt at each opportunity he's had along the way.
Eric Pianin: I was intrigued by the comments in the story by James Tolbert, the long-time president of the West Virginia chapter of the NAACP. Over the years, Tolbert has clashed with Byrd, and he clearly disapproved of much of Byrd's early record in the the House and Senate. But he believes that Byrd has transcended his past by gradually embracing more enlightened social views and by simply owning up to his past mistakes. But I think some blacks and liberal Democrats in West Virginia are also concerned about the Republican resurgence in the state, and the possibility that Byrd eventually could be replaced by a far more conservative politician.
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Red Bank, N.J.: While it Sen. Byrd's Klan membership was a horrible thing and a viable political issue in 1952, I don't think you can hold someone in contempt for something they've did over 50 years ago. Even if he did write the letter in 1946,we're coming up on 60 yrs since then, and he has apologized. This whole things seems to me like an effort by some who are politically opposed to him trying to score political points.
Eric Pianin: He acknowledges that he can't erase his past, and felt obliged to address his Klan membership in some detail. But I agree with a number of other readers who have submitted questions that Byrd would have been better off providing a more detailed and complete record of what he did throughout the 1940's, to avoid the criticism that he was covering up part of the record. But again, he was trying to write a book that highlights what he views as his major contributions to West Virginia and the nation, and was not inclined to provide a lot of introspective insights into what motivated him as a young man.
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Bethesda, Md.: Doesn't Senator Byrd's long Senate career give justification to mandatory term limits for Senators (say 2 six year terms at the most)?
Eric Pianin: That is a hard point to argue for members of an institution where seniority counts for almost everything.
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Washington, D.C.: It appears to me that judging Senator Byrd for his long-ago membership in the Ku Klux Klan is applying present-day notions to the past. As the article makes clear, the Klan of the 1940's and 1950's was made up of the elite - doctors, lawyers, etc. Not the bottom-feeders that make up today's tiny, pathetic "KKK". I think the article failed to explain just how mainstream the Klan really was back then. I think I've read that in the 1920's and 1930's, the Klan had up to 5 million members.
Senator Byrd "saw the light" and left behind the Klan, as did nearly everyone else, including all the doctors, lawyers, etc., who had stood by his side in silly white sheets. Why should he be judged harshly for joining something that was not out of the ordinary at that time? Present-day morality is not retroactive.
Eric Pianin: You're right that the Klan enjoyed substantial popularity and exercised considerable political clout during the 1920's and 1930's -- not only in the Deep South, but in the Midwest and in some northern states as well. Not unlike Byrd, Hugo Black used his Klan membership as a launch pad for his political career, when he first ran for the Senate. But the fact that many prominent people belonged to the Klan -- with its long history of intolerance and violence -- hardly was a justification for it -- then or now.
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Arlington, Va.: Submitting early: Please, give it a rest! Senator Byrd has apologized innumerable times for his Klan involvement. His actions speak louder than words. He has done wonders for his state. A far more important story is why haven't Southern Senators Alexander, Cochran, Sessions, Lott, Shelby, Chambliss, Cornyn and Hutchison explained themselves for NOT signing the lynching resolution? Why do they feel beholden to the white racists in the 21st century? Their actions are far more relevant today than what Senator Byrd did over sixty years ago.
Eric Pianin: That's an interesting point.
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Eric Pianin: Thank you all for your provocative comments and questions. I'm very impressed with the response. I'm only sorry I couldn't answer them all -- Eric
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