Category: Director's Posts

The Byrd Center Remembers President George H.W. Bush.

12/5/2018

Director's Post

The Byrd Center joins with the nation and the world as we reflect on the life and legacy of President George Herbert Walker Bush. Before his term as the forty-first President of the United States, George H.W. Bush served in the United States House of Representatives from the ninth district of Texas, played a significant diplomatic role in the opening of relations between the United States and the Peoples Republic of China, headed the Central Intelligence Agency, and served two terms as Vice President during the Ronald Reagan Administration. His lengthy career in public service coincided largely with that of Senator Byrd, and the two served in leadership in the Senate together during the 100th Congress (1987-1988) during Byrd's last term as Majority Leader.

In his capacity as Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office to the People’s Republic of China in 1975, Bush traveled with Senator Byrd and West Virginia Congressman John Slack on a delegation to China as America worked to open diplomatic relations with the nation. As Vice President on January 6, 1989, Bush administered the oath of office to Senator Byrd as he assumed the role of President Pro Tempore of the U.S. Senate. During his term in office, President Bush and Senator Byrd worked together to reauthorize the Appalachian Regional Development Act, providing funding for critical infrastructure, education, and healthcare projects in the state.

Members of the 1975 delegation to China meeting with Deng Xiaoping, future leader of the People's Republic of China (center, first row), including George H.W. Bush (front row, left) and Senator Byrd and Mrs. Byrd (front row, 4th and 3rd from right).

Vice President Bush administers the oath of office to Senator Byrd as he assumes the role of President Pro Tempore.

A Sincere Thank You and Farewell

6/28/2018

By Ray Smock

As I retire as Director of the Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education after sixteen years, I want to thank all the people who have made these years so satisfying, both professionally and personally. I cannot begin to name everyone. But it includes four presidents of Shepherd University, many fine administrators, and the outstanding faculty of this gem of a liberal arts university. And it includes the students of Shepherd too, those who have been in the classes I have taught over the years, but especially to those who have served as interns at the Byrd Center. I am proud of all of them. Many of our interns have said that their experiences working with the Byrd Center, helping us process Senator Byrd’s vast archive, learning how an archive really works, and being given important tasks to do, was one of their most rewarding experiences during their college years.

The C-SPAN Video Archive: A Magnificent Achievement for the Nation

5/23/2017

By Ray Smock

I am just back from a visit to the C-SPAN Video Library, at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN. This incredible vast video archive contains more than 231,000 hours of C-SPAN broadcasts going back more than thirty years, and it is growing daily, with digital audio and video recordings of each day’s broadcasts on the three C-SPAN channels and C-SPAN radio. While I have been a user of this archive before, this was my first opportunity to see how it works.

C-SPAN President and CEO Susan Swain, Dr. Robert X. Browning, and Ray Smock at the C-SPAN Video Archive in West Lafayette, IN.

A Historic Evening with the Editors of the First Federal Congress Project

5/3/2017

By Ray Smock

I was honored to attend a wonderful reception on April 28 at the historic Anderson House in DC, in celebration of the completion of a great landmark in documentary editing and congressional scholarship, the 22-volume series on the First Federal Congress. This project, housed at George Washington University and published by The Johns Hopkins University Press, has been the life-long work of the chief editor, my dear friend of many years, Charlene Bickford. Along with her fabulous colleagues Ken Bowling, Helen Veit, and Chuck diGiacomantonio , all top professional editors and historians, this magnificent project collected, researched, edited, and annotated the full record of the First Federal Congress that met from 1789 to 1791. It was the Congress that launched our government and turned the words of the U.S. Constitution into the reality of a working government.

L to R: Ken Bowling, Ray Smock, Charlene Bickford, Helen Veit, Chuck diGiacomantonio.

Byrd Center Welcomes New Board Member Lisa Welch

4/26/2017

Lisa Welch, of Shepherdstown WV, has been elected to the board of directors of the Congressional Education Foundation, which operates the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education on the campus of Shepherd University. Walter J. Stewart, chairman of the board, said that Ms. Welch was invited to join the board because of her outstanding commitments to public service and the betterment of Shepherd University and her work to sustain and expand the superb social and cultural environment to which the Byrd Center contributes.

Ms. Welch is a board member of the West Virginia Humanities Council, the Eastern West Virginia Community Foundation, and the Scarborough Society, which helps support the Shepherd University Library. She is also the co-founder and coordinator of the Shepherdstown Film Society. She and her husband Paul were recipients of the President’s Award in 2015 for their outstanding support of Shepherd University and the community.

Byrd Center Director Ray Smock welcomes Lisa Welch to the Congressional Education Foundation Board, which oversees the work of the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education.

So Far Only the Media Have Been Doing Their Job. Now It’s Congress’s Turn.

3/7/2017

By Ray Smock

This article first appeared on the History News Network on Sunday, March 5, 2017.

Calls for investigations of the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russian agents, the alleged Russian hacking of Democratic Party officials including Hillary Clinton, then Democratic National Committee Chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Clinton campaign director John Podesta and others could involve investigations by House and Senate committees, the establishment of a special prosecutor, or an independent commission, not unlike the 9/11 Commission that investigated the attacks on the Trade Towers, the Pentagon, and the loss of Flight 93 on September 11, 2001. Whatever investigations do emerge, all will be fraught with pitfalls and perils that may not get to the bottom of the complex and murky Russian connections to the presidential election of 2016.

1987 Iran-Contra Investigation (Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition). From the United States Senate Historical Office.

One of the Finest Leaders in the House of Representatives

2/21/2017

By Ray Smock

Robert H. Michel of Illinois who died this week at the age of 93 was the Republican Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1981 to 1995 and served a total of 38 years in the House, retiring in 1995. Bob’s entire career in the House was as a member of the minority party during the long ascendancy of the Democrats that lasted forty years. It was bittersweet for him to announce his retirement in 1994, when the election that year resulted in the Republicans gaining control of the House. By then, however, Newt Gingrich was on the rise and he and the new Republicans that rode to victory that year had a completely different style of militant leadership. Those of us who witnessed the “Gingrich Revolution” could not help but think that Bob Michel would have a difficult time with the new style of leadership had he remained in the House.

Congressman Robert H. Michel

The Peaceful Transfer of Great Power

1/17/2017

By Ray Smock

Inauguration Day in the United States of America is always a remarkable event, but it is even more so when the incoming president is of the opposite political party from the incumbent president. What makes the day so remarkable is that we make a celebratory occasion about the peaceful and orderly way we accept the will of the people in electing each new president. In so many countries in the world power changes hands in coups or with troops in the streets and clashing armies. It is not that our inaugurations have not been free of anxiety and high drama, or that there haven’t been protestors as part of the day’s events. Protest too is an essential part of democratic societies and the fact that we tolerate and even encourage dissent, sets us apart.

Our first inauguration, held in New York City in April 30, 1789, saw George Washington arriving by boat to proceed up to Federal Hall at the corner of Broad and Wall Streets for his swearing-in ceremony. There was no Supreme Court yet, so he was sworn in by the highest-ranking judge in New York, Chancellor Robert Livingston. It is hard to imagine the special nature of that inauguration, which was part of the launching of the Great Experiment in Self-Government. With the first quorums of the House and Senate earlier that April, and with Washington’s swearing-in, the Constitution went from parchment to reality.

A depiction of the first inauguration of George Washington, April 30, 1789.

Counting the Electoral Ballots—The View from the Floor of the House

12/6/2016

By Ray Smock

In this excerpt from the journal I kept during the years I was Historian of the House, I describe what it was like to be an eyewitness to the counting of the of the ballots of the Electoral College, the final step, other than the inauguration which followed two weeks later, in the process of transferring power from one administration to the next. In the election of 1992, Bill Clinton and Al Gore won 370 Electoral votes to 168 for George H.W. Bush and Dan Quayle. That year third party candidate, billionaire Ross Perot, won almost 20 million votes, but did not carry a single state. I have added some additional identifying information in brackets.

Floor pass issued to House Historian Ray Smock to attend the joint session of Congress to count the Electoral vote, Jan. 6, 1993.

A Historic Election

11/15/2016

By Ray Smock

The election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States is one of historic proportions that we will be studying and analyzing for years to come, as we do with all our presidential and congressional elections. Here at the Byrd Center our mission has not changed, nor would it change no matter which political party controls Congress or the Executive Branch.