GPR writers Khalil Farah and Ryan Prior had the chance to speak to Senator Wyche Fowler. Fowler was born in Atlanta and served as a city councilman there until being elected to the U.S. House where we served from 1977-86 until he moved on to a term in the Senate. After Congress, he was the ambassador to Saudi Arabia under Clinton and then board chair of the Mid-East institute for ten years. Here he speaks about getting involved in politics, Arab culture, and country music.
You got involved in politics at a fairly young age; do you have any advice for new graduates who are pursing a career in politics?
Well things have changed since I first got involved in politics, but still the best way for people who are interested in politics is to get involved is to volunteer while still in college. And I mean really volunteer, not just show up every few weeks and knock on doors for an hour but convince the campaign director that you can be relied on to show up every afternoon and do whatever needs to be done. In other words, you want the campaign to develop loyalty to you as you do to the candidates and the campaign. When those campaign directors get elected they will remember who was the hard and faithful during the campaign and will remember you when you are looking for a full time job after college. When I was serving in the army, I worked intelligence in the Pentagon, I used to go to my Georgia congressman after I got off duty at 3:30 and clip newspapers and sort them by subject.
You were an English major in college; did you find that major helped in politics?
Not so much, but no matter what major you are there is great value in reading widely. When you read widely you come across fiction and non-fiction which forms your political opinions. Also, the more you read, the better you write. Being able to write clearly is just as valuable in a political career as speaking clearly.
I also hear you’re a pretty good country music guitarist.
I think you got a very old website (laughs). No I started early when I was about six years old. I had these big hands so I could get them around the neck of the guitar and play chords. I started playing at birthday parties around Atlanta at age 6 or 7. I think I got about $2 a party. I had a good time but now I strum at home mainly to myself.
You ran for office while still in law school, what was that like?
My first year I was in law school during the fall and I looked around at my fellow law students and saw a lot of free labor. I recruited about 50 of them and we had a lot of fun pounding the pavement and knocking on doors. Before my first year was up, I was a law student and a city [councilman]. I couldn’t have done it without those students.
You wrote the Boland Amendment while in Congress [it banned the CIA from funding Nicaraguan contras], did your work at the Pentagon cause you to believe the CIA needed legislative oversight?
Yes, Absolutely. My primary interest was foreign policy but I saw some things going on that were not legal under any circumstances and I thought one of the reasons was that Congress would enact these programs and appropriate the money and not provide any oversight to see if the intent was followed.
It seems you still have an interest in foreign policy; you worked with the Middle East Institute for ten years. If you could dispel one myth about Arabs in the U.S. what would it be?
I think if I had to pick one, I would say that people think since Arabs are Islamic their value systems are different than those of us who live in, what we like to call, a primarily Christian nation. People don’t realize that we all worship the same God and that the wishes of parents for their children, whether they be in Athens, GA or Damascus, are no different. We all wish upon them education, good health, and community ties, but there is this myth that they are others and therefore aliens to our value systems and way of life.
Did you see similarities in particular with the southern culture and the Arab one?
Oh yes. That’s why I got along with them so well. We both believe in putting family first, like the Arabs do. We care a lot more about our families than our governments, like the Arabs do. And there is this sense that in the South we believe in hospitality and tradition and the ties between family and tradition. That’s a southern trait as much as it as an Arab one.
While ambassador to Saudi Arabia, I heard a story about you taking a camel trip across the desert. How was it?
Well they didn’t know about [my camel trip] and unfortunately the king was looking for me while I was out in the desert. My staff told him that I was gone and he couldn’t believe it. He told my staff, “Call him on the truck phone!” and my staff said, “Well he doesn’t have a truck.” Then “Call him on the satellite phone!” And my staff said, “Well all he has is a camel.” But the Saudis were just so proud that I went to see their desert and see the archeology and that I went to do it the old Bedouin way. I crossed the great Nafud Desert in the north. Beautiful desert with red sand, but I thought it was only going to take three days and nights, it took eight. The three men I was with and I did not see another person the whole time. It was winter so you had to alternate between walking through the knee deep sand to warm up and riding to rest your legs. It impressed them, though, that here is an American who was interested in their country, their culture, and their traditions and would get out from being the desk, take off the striped diplomatic britches, and get out so to speak.
