DEL.ICIO.USHamilton Jordan remembered at memorial service
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/23/08
Hamilton Jordan was remembered as a political genius, a loving husband and father, an unrepentant jokester, an enjoyer of cocktails and especially as a cancer survivor and warrior advocate for others afflicted with the disease.
Tom Johnson, former head of CNN, summed up the former White House chief of staff as "the bravest fighter I have ever met. He fought and he fought and he fought."
 Curtis Compton/AJC | ||
| Dorothy Jordan embraces her son, Hamilton Jordan Jr., as they arrive for the memorial service for her late husband, former White House Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan. | ||
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To an overflow crowd inside the 475-seat chapel at the Carter Center, former President Jimmy Carter added of Jordan, "No other human being affected my life and career more beneficially than Hamilton Jordan." Carter then closed his 10-minute eulogy at the end of a 70-minute memorial service, "I loved Hamilton like my own son, and I will miss him for the rest of my life."
The former president said he worked with Jordan for 42 years. He spoke of the time during his governorship when Jordan came into his office and said, "Governor, I want to talk to you about your future."
Jordan told Carter he could not run for another term as governor, and he could not beat Herman Talmadge for another term. "I think you ought to run for ... " Then Jordan tried to spit out the word, "... p-, p-" and finally he said, "... national office." Carter said, "Which one?" Jordan said, "There ain't but one."
He said when they were in the White House, then-House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill called Carter in the Oval Office and the president said, "What can I do for you, Mr. Speaker?" And O'Neill said, "Go down the hall and ask Hamilton Jordan to return my call." Carter said he replied, "Yes sir, Mr. Speaker. I'll deliver your message, if I can find Hamilton this afternoon."
Carter said he was always surprised in his press conferences. He thought people were going to ask him about Middle East peace, but the question more often was something like, "Does Hamilton Jordan really wear blue jeans and tennis shoes in the Oval Office?"
"Hamilton was the unquestioned coordinator of our entire staff," Carter said. "Everyone in the White House knew Hamilton was the chief."
Mourners started arriving early Friday at the Carter Center for the 2 p.m. memorial service for Hamilton Jordan. The venue already was half full at 12:45; hundreds of guests had arrived by 1 p.m.
Early arrivals included Chip Carter, son of former President Carter, and former Emory University President Jim Laney.
Others arriving early included Andrew Young; former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland; Carter's budget director, Bert Lance; former U.S. Sen. Wyche Fowler; former Carter pollster Pat Caddell; Carter media adviser Gerald Rafshoon; and Atlanta Braves executive John Schuerholz.
Fowler, when asked about a favorite Hamilton Jordan memory, said this:
"Well, we ran against each other for the Senate in 1986. I got 49 percent of the vote, so we were going to have to have a runoff. I called Hamilton and basically asked him to get out of the race so that we could beat the Republicans in the fall. A couple of days later — I'll never forget — he graciously threw his support to me.
"I've admired his courage and loyalty all these years."
Cleland also shared a favorite Jordan memory.
"Hamilton Jordan literally opened the door for me," Cleland said. "On Jan. 20, 1977, at 20 minutes after five o'clock, he opened the door to the Oval Office and said 'come in.' And I found myself face to face with the president of the United States, and I couldn't speak."
Cleland soon after became the director of the Veterans Administration. It was President Jimmy Carter's first appointment.
Lance said of his friend Jordan, "He was the personification of courage with all the illnesses he went through. His attitude was so impressive. Of course, we got a lot of experience with courage in Washington.
"It took a lot of courage to face what we faced in Washington," Lance said "He went through what I went through. I called it 'the Lance toe-test' — that's where you go out on the front stoop and turn the Washington Post over with your toe. If your name is above the fold, you know it's going to be a bad day. Hamilton and I had to face all of that."
Patrick Caddell, Carter's former pollster, recalled Jordan's tenacity.
"We went through so many wars together," Caddell said. "Hamilton was always at his best when our backs were to the wall. He never faltered. He would say, 'We're just gonna beat their ass.'
"He was our leader," he said. "The most natural-born leader I've seen in my life."
At 10 minutes before 2 p.m. Friday, Carter held the hand of Jordan's widow, Dorothy, as he escorted her through the lobby of the Ivan Allen III Pavilion.
The two walked through the lobby as guests and dignitaries, including former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn and former Carter administration members Vice President Walter Mondale, Young and Gerald Rafshoon, cleared a path for them. Carter and Mrs. Jordan proceeded into the auditorium where the service began on time.
Inside the Carter Center, sprays of roses, lilacs, and carnations were arrayed along one lobby wall — sent from, among others, president and Mrs. Michael Adams of the University of Georgia, the School of Public and International Affairs at UGA and the volunteers and staff of the American Cancer Society.
There was a stand of sunflowers in the lobby and five sprays of sunflowers sat along the stage in the Cecil B. Day chapel.
Hamilton Jordan, 63, died at his Atlanta home Tuesday after a long struggle with mesothelioma, a form of cancer.
Jordan was the political whiz kid who, while still in his 20s, crafted a strategy to elect a peanut farmer turned Southern governor named Jimmy Carter as 39th president of the United States. He then served Carter in the White House as one of the youngest chiefs of staff ever.
Jordan survived multiple bouts with cancer over the past two decades, and during his varied post-White House career became one of the country's leading advocates for cancer research and patient care.
His 2000 memoir, "No Such Thing as a Bad Day," was a national best seller. He also founded the Georgia Cancer Coalition, writing the strategic blueprint for the $1 billion in tobacco settlement money that funded the effort organized by Gov. Roy Barnes.
Jordan and his wife also founded Camp Sunshine for children with cancer. When his daughter Kathleen, one his three children, was later diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, the couple founded Camp Kudzu for other children with the disease.
But it was Jordan's precocious political acumen that first launched him on to the national stage.
Raised in Albany and descended from red-clay political bloodlines — relatives included a president of the state senate and a chief justice of the state Supreme Court — Jordan was described by his mother even as a child as "a political animal."
After working as youth coordinator on Carter's failed 1966 run for governor — he had not yet graduated from the University of Georgia — Jordan became campaign manager for Carter's successful 1970 bid.
Within two years, Jordan and several other aides hatched a plan for Carter to run for president in 1976.
Jordan's 70-plus page memo, delivered to Carter just days before Richard Nixon's landslide re-election, became a kind of campaign Rosetta Stone for unknown political hopefuls.
Migrating to Washington with a pack of other Georgians (the "Georgia Mafia"), Jordan joined the administration as "unofficial" chief of staff, Carter has said, then was given that title officially in 1979, at age 34.
His casual style and sometimes bumptious forays into Washington society made Jordan a lightening rod for criticism during Carter's turbulent single term.
Yet he led negotiations to pass the Panama Canal treaties, and participated in talks that led to the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt.
Jordan moved to Atlanta after Carter was defeated by Ronald Reagan. He first taught at Emory University and wrote the 1982 book, "Crisis: The Last Year of the Carter Presidency."
In 1986, he ran for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator, losing to Atlanta congressman Wyche Fowler. He became chief executive for the Association of Tennis Players, from 1987 to 1990, then briefly served in 1992 as a campaign strategist for Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot's third-party presidential bid.
Jordan's first cancer diagnosis, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, came in 1985. He battled various forms of the disease afterward, including melanoma and prostate cancer.
Jordan called on his long experience as a survivor not only to advocate in the cancer community, but also to inspire thousands of others diagnosed with the disease.
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