Oral History Interview with John Y. Brown, Jr., June 15, 1998

BEGIN TAPE 3.3 White: Okay.

Brown: Okay and so it’s a matter of really challenging higher ed as to what do we really expect out of you, first of all get rid of all the programs you don’t need, eliminate them, consolidate and do well what your end of the state needs for the people down there, and…and that’s what we concentrated on and I, if you look back on our budget, as I recall, we gave the biggest increases to the instructors and the teaching profession that had been given for a number of years. Jim (King?) was my chief of staff, and he was into higher education, and we were very supportive, now in some of the cutbacks they may have been cut back significantly, because we had five major cutbacks, but every budget proposal we made had substantial increases for the professors because they were way underpaid. We 1:00did get, I think, state government workers up to competing level of income and to me that was the most important thing, in order to keep the top professors, but we were sort of shaking higher edge up--higher ed up to finally get a direction. If you remember it was out of our administration that Kentucky was identified as our state university and Louisville as our urban university, and these others were regional roles, so when it came down to the general assembly, it wasn’t always to fight, let’s get all we can get for Eastern, or Murray, or Western, but here is our, here is our division of allocation of funds and so we tried to get some direction there and, and higher education is, is very theoretical, and I like to see them teach more of the type of courses that people are going to build careers on, and instead of this idea they quote a, a broad education so they can be exposed to things they may never be exposed to. You know I, I would like, when I went to college, to learn something about management, something about finance, economics, 2:00selling, business, the things that I would apply when I w...when I got in business, I didn’t know how to read a balance sheet or a P&L they didn’t teach anything and yet they made me take Latin or Spanish, and, and, and physics and things that I’ve never used, and even today, I think the most important thing you do for a college student is to evaluate them as to what they might like to be when they grow up.

Brown: I mean after all, I’m no different now than when I was eighteen. I re...I think the same way, and yet the philosophy of the educators is we need to give them a broad spectrum, and, and, and half of it, of things they’ll never use, and I just like to have learned things that I was interested in. It would have been easier to say hey you shouldn’t be a lawyer, sitting in library doing briefs, you’re a salesman, you ought to get into business. You ought to maybe be an entrepreneur, look at what entrepreneurs do. I’d like to have learned about them, you know, some of the things that would have benefited me, I learned the hard way, I learned the street way and not that it hadn’t served me well, but 3:00you know, I had four years in college that I could have been more productive, and I, I still feel that way. Lincoln is going to (Horton’s?) because that’s a business school and I told him, I said, “Lincoln, you know, find a school that is going to teach you what you want to learn when you get out.” And I can be wrong, I have debated this with the scholars, and I still feel the same way. They’re out here with a four-hundred-million-dollar campaign for research for the University of Kentucky and I, I told the consultant that came out, I said, “but what is research, research of what? And how does that help you in, in, in your everyday life?” And I said, “you know, what you ought to do is get scholarships for all your best students and keep them in Kentucky so they can go out, like Bruce Lundsford, or David Jones, or myself, or Wendell (Cherry?), or W. T. Young and build the kind of industries that are going to create good jobs here in Kentucky.” And I just think so much of higher ed is theoretical instead of being practical, and I am a practical person.

White: Do you remember anything about the, some of the turf battles that when you were trying to re-define the, the...the focus of the universities....

Brown: Yes....

White: ...Do you remember?

Brown: ... I remember a lot of turf battles, but we were independent enough to, 4:00I think, pull it off, and I remember arguing....

White: Well....

Brown: ...and....

White: ...what, what were some of the problems that they had, and how did you....

Brown: ...well what it was....

White: ...handle them?

Brown: ...mainly one of, of allocation of resources and identity of what’s your purpose. So we are the first administration to devise a purpose for each university, to where the legislature and the universities themselves understood their role, and, and I, and I, in o...in o...in other, instead of trying to be all things to all people, they are more relegated to a role and to a curriculum, and I thought it was one of the best things we did is to, first do the self-analysis, of who are we and what are we expected to do and I, I, Ed Pritchard, the Pritchard committee, was the lead. I think that started in my administration and he’d been the leader, even today on, on higher ed and not that we perfected it, but at least we, we...I think unclogged it and I remember arguing, we challenged higher ed probably harder than any, and I think it did some good. We, we halfway insulted it in a, in a, in a professional way, and I remember bringing it up at one of the meetings, I said, “Mr. Pritchard, I don’t understand why, you know, teachers teach four hours a day, 5:00or four hours a week, and they do research for thirty-six?” I said, “you know, especially if you’re teaching history, or geography, it’d be like me selling a set of encyclopedias, they gave me the sales pitch, and all I do is give it again and again, and again.” He said, “Oh! You think…he just, he just went ( ) “all they have to have time to research and this, that and the other,” and I said, “well, maybe on certain subject matters, but” I said, “I don’t know why they don’t work twelve hours a week, or sixteen hours a week,” and I’m, you know, we were just sort of challenging if from a, from a business standpoint, and...hopefully some good came out of it. But they were, you know, they were mainly turf builders, and without any identity, and they were always down at Frankfort trying to beg for all the money they could get, and we were just trying 6:00to get a direction, which I think we had more of a direction of U. of L., U. of K., and our regional universities.

White: You also recommended, or someone in your adminit...administration recommended for the future that there be a single governing board for UK and U. of L. Now, I wonder if you thought about that....

Brown: I....

White: ...since Patton has taken away the community colleges from UK and there was a big flap over that, I mean, could, could the two colleges have survived with a single governing board?

Brown: Well, most states operated that way.

White: Oh!

Brown: And, and, it needed one chancellor, it needed, like you can have one president you know, it, you, otherwise you’ll keep, keep fighting the turf battles forever and if they had one chancellor that understood our role and that was the type of leader that could have used the best of both universities, yes, I thought the chancellorship was the way to go at the time, it’d been painful.

White: Yeah, I was going to say, would the politics have allowed to do it, to push that through?

Brown: It’d been hard, it’s been hard, but, but we thought it was the right thing to do. We didn’t care about the politically end of it, we just said, if we thought it was a good idea, we’d back it up 7:00and, and we got through most everything we wanted politically, because usually we were right on the subject matter.

White: You also dropped the...university presidents from the council on higher education.

Brown: Well, that’s like putting the...what is it, the fox in the henhouse? I guess we really didn’t think that you know; they were the ones to come in and give the reports on their college, but not to vote on each other’s budget.

White: How did they take that, do you remember?

Brown: They didn’t, they didn’t like it, but they couldn’t complain about it, you know.

White: Also, what about Kentucky State University? There was a study on the future of that and I think there is, probably has been more than one study, w...was that always a university whose mission was always in question? Is it, was it....

Brown: I think so, I think we....

White: ...extra institution?

Brown: Yeah, we were the first ones to 8:00really question that and, you know, being from a business background, your first instincts, well, you know, is it really necessary? Can…are black students still get as good an education at all of our regional universities, that they can, and specializing, you know, like the university, like Kentucky State, and what can you do with Kentucky state, and I, I sort of concluded that this is the one exception, that you can certainly argue that it can be consolidated or eliminated, but then the Black community would have felt, I think naked, that they didn’t have their own university to where they felt comfortable going and they felt they could identify and, and be inclusive, and I think for that reason, it was more of a cultural thing that I bypassed that. It certainly could have been argued, and we looked at it, but at the end of the day, I said that wouldn’t have been fair to the, you know, half million Black Kentuckians, or however many, we have three or four hundred thousand. Black Kentuckians that they have their own place to where they can be incentivized, they can feel comfortable, and they will have the desire to go to college, 9:00and, but that was one after some deep soul searching but that was more of an emotional decision that I thought it would be the wrong thing to do to try to abolish it or cut back. Give the black community, you know, their pride that they can go there, and they can still go to the other universities, but I think that if we had taken it out it was going to be a slap in the face to the black community.

White: I also noticed, I think in the report to the taxpayers, that Kentucky was only the second state to have their college desegregation program approved by the federal government. What was your motivation? Was it justice? Was it obedience to the law? Was it creating a talent pool? Why did you do such a good job [Chuckle] Brown: Oh, I don’t know other than maybe just a philosophy of, of independence that we had and that nothing was being done politically and I remember when it happened, 10:00and I can’t really take credit for it, specifically. I remember that happened....

White: Would, I mean, did you do this because it was the right thing to do? Or did you do it because you were obeying the federal law?

Brown: I can’t, I can’t remember that.

White: You can’t answer that?

Brown: Uh-huh.

White: Okay.

Brown: But I do remember when it happened, and I can’t take credit for the reason.

White: Okay. I’d like to move on now to some other areas, if we could, and w...let’s, let’s talk about coal and energy for a little bit.

Brown: Okay.

White: You, you stated that one of your biggest frustrations was the abandonment by the federal government of a national energy policy.

Brown: Mm-mm.

White: Can you discuss that a little bit?

Brown: Sure, Jimmy Carter, when he had his Camp David meetings, if you remember his administration was sort of falling apart and he reorganized his whole cabinet and, Jimmy was a person who wanted to do everything himself, that’s why he wasn’t a very effective administrator, 11:00and I think he learned that about half way through and he wanted to reorganize and one of the priorities of his whole administration, midway through, was what is the answer to the energy problem, and I think that’s when we had the gasoline lines and the, and the gasoline rationing or whatever, and they came up with a policy of Synfuel plants, but boy we got right on that, and as I recall, we had like four or five of the biggest Synfuel plants that we had lured to Kentucky and Bill Sturgill had put the contracts together and we were on the road to some major development, I mean bringing in the Synfuel plant in is like 12:00bringing Toyota in, as far as jobs, as well as the use of our, our energy resources. But, you know, those (poles?) flaked out in the federal government, but at the time that was the thing to do, and we went after it hook, line and sinker and we were the most effective, I don’t think any other state got more than one and, yes we were disappointed because that was a big plum, that was the answer to energy at the time, but then it was eliminated and, and it sort of, you know, put the coal back where it was before that idea came up.

White: Synfuels are created from, from coal....

Brown: Mm-mm.

White: ...Right? So that you would not have abandoned your coal certainly, you would have used it....

Brown: No, we....

White: ...in a way that was more....

Brown: That’s right!

White: ...appropriate to the future.

Brown: Mm-mm, to get more energy out of it, uh-huh.

White: Did you ever give any thought to...I guess you would call it more sustainable energy, nuclear or solar, or were you, at that point, just focused on a better way to use coal.

Brown: Yeah, I think we were, we were looking at ways to...expedite coal 13:00and to make it the primary source of energy for Kentucky.

White: Also, I want to ask you what happened to the Appalachian Regional Commission. The federal government had tried to abolish it and then I think you, you and your administration got funding restored. What, what was going on there?

Brown: That’s interesting, you might talk to Al Smith about that, because Al was the head of the ARC, I don’t know if you know Al Smith or not....

White: Yeah.

Brown: ...but...he is a good friend of mine, but I remember going to that meeting, and with all the other governors, I think there were what, thirteen or eleven in that region, and they had all decided that if we were going to get along with Reagan, we needed to abolish the ARC. And…because this was another sort of pot of money that we are trying to subsidize certain underprivileged citizens and Reagan...philosophy was different and we were going to eliminate all those kind of programs, and so they all came to that meeting wanting 14:00to get along with Reagan and they were going to vote themselves out, eliminate the whole ARC, and Al Smith came up to me and said, “governor, you need to do something, here is what they’re going to do, they’re all going to vote against it to abolish it.” And I said, “well, tell me what you do!” I knew a little bit about it but not much, and this when I was just brand new into office, and so I gave a, one of my best speeches talking about JFK’s legacy and they had a legacy that has done a lot of good and he had a legacy for a reason, because you know, his, his administration brought dreams and hopes to, you know, many of what we consider our underprivileged citizens, and we’ve now built roads and hospitals and schools and that we built a l…a way of life that if you come in and stop this, you’re going to have roads leading halfway to nowhere, you’re going to have facilities half way up, you’re going to have promises broken. And I said, you know, he was elected for a reason and these commitments and programs were started for a reason and I don’t think we want to kill JFK’s dreams or commitments and obligations just because we elect a new president. I said, 15:00“besides you know, we are all here to protect ourselves and we are the southern states, and we are the sates that, that benefit from Appalachia, we’re the states that need it more than anyone else, and, and if we are here to lead, then, you know, we don’t need to follow someone that wants to kill the dreams of JFK.” And anyway, it was, it really came out good, all of them turned around and voted to keep it, but it was all the sort of spur of the moment’s kind of speech that the words happen to come together, and they would have then been embarrassed to vote against something after we laid it out like that.

White: [Chuckling] You got the weight-distance tax for trucks...p...put in, I’m....

Brown: Mm-mm.

White: Yeah, trucks, trucks, and ro...trucks and cars I guess were pay...paying the same...tax on roads, and trucks do a lot more damage than cars do, and so you got the weight-distance tax instituted for trucks.

Brown: Yes.

White: But then the coal trucks 16:00were exempted. Why?

Brown: I assume that was the amount of legislators that felt like we were prejudicing our own people where the idea was to make money off those that use our state roads and are benefited from other states, and that the coal industry was a, a home industry and therefore they shouldn’t be taxed like out-of-state trucks traveling through Kentucky to go to Florida, go to New York, or go to Chicago. And I think that’s pretty l…pretty legitimate. I suspect that was the reason, I don’t….

White: You think it was the legislature mostly that….

Brown: Yeah, they wanted to protect....

White: ...that exempted that.

Brown: ...and that was a, that was a tough tax to get through, but it was one--and we thought was fair and equitable, we spent 17:00billions of dollars on these roads and, and interstate commerce, we were entitled to our fair share of revenues off the usage. And at the same time, we didn’t want to prejudice our own industry and make such a burden on it that it couldn’t be competitive.

White: Okay, moving on to public health, a couple of innovative programs were instituted there, one was the one where the...state and local governments gave the money to Humana to take care of the....

Brown: Mm-mm.

White: ...indigent. And the other was something called City Care which assigned the primary care doctor to the AFDC, Families with Dependent Children recipients, and that primary care doctor would always, also manage higher, or manage...the health care of the, of the child. Do you remember anything about those programs being instituted and do you know if they’ve been maintained?

Brown: Well I remember them very well the Humana situation and that was a business decision and it wasn’t hard to make and yet it’s ne...it 18:00had never done before, never in the history of government anywhere across the country...was a government entity like a hospital given to private enterprise, and we were losing like eight million dollars a year trying to operate the University of Louisville and we spent eighty million dollars on the facility, and I knew David Jones and Wendell (Cherry?) and I trusted them as men of honor and men of community, and they had the professionalism, and they had the backup organization, to get it out of the hands of a university like the University of Louisville, which I didn’t think was in a position to manage for profit hospital, and that we are not a charitable state, everything doesn’t have to be for charity, and yet indigent care was creeping up at four or five, six, eight million a years and maybe to twenty million a year before it was over because you know, we could not turn away indigent care, and this was the hospital that had been 19:00identified for indigent care to come to for that region of our state. And so, we basically told Humana, we’re going to give you the hospital, take it over, and manage it, work out these programs with the University of Louisville, give them 25 percent of the profit, guarantee to take care of all indigent care forever. So we had the indigent care problem, which was five or six million dollars a year, plus we had the loss of hospital that we eliminated, so we’re eliminated maybe ten million or more a year on eighty million dollar facility that we couldn’t do anything but lose money, and it turned out, as I understand, as a brilliant transition and very successful, where I think the University of Louisville a year or two later got a couple of million dollars extra money in their split of the profits, indigent care was taken care of a 100 percent, and the teaching profession, as I understand it, was set up and supported better than ever. But that was a bold decision but one for us at the time we didn’t think was a very difficult decision to make. But it had never been made before; I don’t think it’s been made since. I, you know, 20:00they’ve, they’ve reflected on that for the last twenty years, but most things I’ve read kept up with it that it has been all very positive, and there may have been, you know, some criticism here and there, but overall, I think people would admit that it was a God sent, that we took that step with it--like the art center, you know, the art center committed when I came into office, the University of Louisville is going to run it, and, and we got one bureaucracy running another and, and that’s when we went to Mister Bingham and...Mister...oh the other gentleman over there, what is his name?

White: Jerry?

Brown: No, that ran the big insurance company, huh....

White: The big insurance company.

Brown: Simon.

White: Oh! Tom Simon!

Brown: Yeah, Tom Simon, and…I asked them to raise six million dollars and for them to build it and run it themselves, and it’s been a, a beautifully operated...entity in the community and one that gave them a great deal of pride, and they’ve done a wonderful job, 21:00but that’s just the way we looked at things, is that free enterprises are much better than government running anything.

White: What made you realize the importance of tourism?

Brown: Well....

White: People recognize it today as the p...ma...perhaps the second...most important or, or most lucrative industry nationally, but I, I don’t remember much being said about that in the seventies.

Brown: Well, I just think...you know, you look at your, you look at your assets, and you wonder well, how to take advantage of it, and here again, we are setting, you know, just south of Illinois, and, and…Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and, and we have a lot to offer here, we have one of the finest state park systems in the United States, and we have more waterways than any state in the United States and, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Lake Barkley, and Kentucky Dam, I mean that’s just, you know, it’s breathtaking down there. There is nothing in the United States like it. And yet the world didn’t know about it. 22:00And even not that many Kentuckians knew about it, and so we just tried to put a, a positive campaign on it to promote tourism and I’m not sure that that’s something that couldn’t be even upgraded substantially. I looked at the, the famous golf architect to come in and examine our golf courses and make it the, w...he was the number one golf architect, his name was Jones, I forget his first name, but...I was going to have him come in and design the courses, within limits, and then we’d call it you know, all our golf, say golf courses are designed by this famous architect named Jones. And…he’s still, he’s still designing courses at ninety-five. But we looked into every way to promote our state park system, and we do have a lot to offer here, 23:00and I think tourism has grown, but I think there is even a lot more potential than you know, if you don’t stop in Kentucky and see what we’ve got, then you’re going to end up the only thing different going all the way to Florida, and the beaches and the sun. But we’ve done a good job in building facilities over the years [clears throat] specially in western Kentucky, I mean I, I didn’t realize we had that frankly, until after I ran for governor, how magnificent breathtaking it was down there.

White: Did you go to visit it yourself, or....

Brown: Mm-mm, yeah, (Smith Broadbent?) invited us down and, and I just didn’t realize what we had, and that was a, that was just something special. I didn’t realize how many hunters and fishermen we had, I mean it was like eight hundred thousand people, you know, had licenses, so that’s a, been a major joy and occupation and sideline for people in Kentucky.

White: What about emissions testing, that was new when you were governor.

Brown: Mm-mm.

White: Mandated by the federal government?

Brown: I think it was I mean we had so much time to....

White: Or at least....

Brown: ...needed to implement it.

White: ...it was a, a response to their requirements.

Brown: Yeah.

White: Yeah. Do....

Brown: And we, we felt like, you know, especially for Louisville and some of our metropolitan cities that it was the right thing to do 24:00and it, yeah it was controversial, but we felt like it was the right thing to do, we didn’t care about how controversial it was and, as I remember, we implemented it.

White: As I r...as I remember, northern Kentucky dragged its feet. Jefferson County got it put through fairly smoothly, but northern Kentucky dragged its feet. You, you remember much about that?

Brown: I remember that....

White: ( ) was other people.

Brown: ...and I think all we can do is, is encourage it and push it and fund it. I don’t know exactly what all we did, but we did push it, and we had a few problems along the way, of those who protested and didn’t think it was necessary, or, had, had a better way of doing it.

White: Do you remember what was involved in the achievement of primacy? I’m, I’m jumping around a little bit.

Brown: That’s okay.

White: Which will be state as opposed to federal control of mining reclamation? Do you remember why Kentucky 25:00wanted to have control of that other than….

Brown: Well, I think it’s....

White: ...the turf?

Brown: Yeah, I think the state is wanting control of their own destiny and thinking though this is a state problem that we ought to govern instead of having the federal government come down uneducated and…on a day’s visit and try to tell us how to run our business and, that’s I think, that’s why we wanted primacy.

White: Okay. Let me ask you about women. You’ve mentioned women a few times in the course of these conversations, both from the point of view of their abilities and from the point of view of their getting the short end of the stick, although those weren’t your words, but I think that’s what you meant. You mentioned your mother’s lack of fulfillment when we first, I think it was when we first started this some years ago, were there any other experiences that shaped your attitude toward women?

Brown: Well, I think I, I screw up that women can do anything a man can do, if they were given the, you know....

White: Why did you think that?

Brown: Well, just by being around them in business and, 26:00and, and finding out that while they wer...had lower roles in business, they were just as smart and just as capable, and really ran a more orderly shop than what men did, and it meant women were never given the opportunity mainly because they didn’t have the experience and, and they didn’t have the image of being able to, and I think I tried to change that, certainly from ( ) standpoint and it worked very well for me, but I, I learned through business and life, and I remember in some of my speeches, you know, women can do anything a man can do if they are given the, the time and the, and the attention, and the opportunity to do it, and they were all, you know, God’s children, and we’re, we are all really can do the same things and just because we have a cultural backgrounds that have, had different responsibilities doesn’t mean that women 27:00can’t do many or most everything a man can do, and I had that philosophy, and I was really delighted when I could name June Taylor as my chief of staff, and no one ever heard at that time, I think she is the first woman chief of staff in the country, or maybe the second. But usually you assign someone that was politically oriented, like Howard Baker, or, or, you know, the ones that really know government and had a big name, and when I lost Jim (King?) who, who went to the University of Kentucky, I came up with the idea of June Taylor, she was my secretary, but she had been in the state government for thirty years and knew everybody, and knew the political ins and outs, and didn’t ( ) people, well intended, proficient, organized, a real professional and I brought it up to my senior cabinet of entrepreneurs and they said, “great idea,” and not one person objected and so I, I was pleased to name her chief of staff, and she ran the governor’s office, I mean, and she shielded me, 28:00protected me, and supported me, and I couldn’t have done without her, she was brilliant, and because when it came to filling all the boards and all the information I needed to make decisions, she was ideal for it. (Jackie Swaggart?) was the first cabinet woman, cabinet secretary and she happened to be the number one environmentalist and I got a lot of flak over that, but not because she is a woman, because she is an environmentalist and but, and, and, you know, Lois (Mathis?) went on to get a, you know, several, two-hundred thousand dollar figure out of Brown-Forman, we had a lot of very capable women in our administration, but, you know, and I was being married to a very professional woman who happened to have her picture on all the governor’s pictures that we sent out, and she was my teammate, but also having an office next door to me and so I certainly wasn’t intimidated by the role of women, 29:00in fact I supported it as, as best I could throughout all levels.

White: Yeah, I was just trying to, you were the first, I think to, to put as many women in, in as high offices as you did, and I guess I was just trying to probe where that might have come from, because it, it....

Brown: I think....

White: ...it was not....

Brown: ...I think it....

White: ...it was not to be taken for granted twenty years ago.

Brown: No, I think, I think, in fact I had so much experience; see being governor was really an easy job for me because I did all this. I had picked people, I’d organize, I’d made decisions, I’d made mistakes and, and I’d learned, and so by the time that I ran for governor, I was prepared, not only being a lawyer but being independent in my own thinking but also having an opportunity to manage a lot of diverse operations from international across the board, and I, you know, I got burned in a lot of these, I learned a lot from them. But when I was a governor in my first day, I said, well what do you do, I said, well I’ll figure this out and it was really a very easy job. In fact, I don’t think I had to make a decision in government that I hadn’t made something similar at some point in my career before. And so, you can’t replace that experience, and I think when it came to women, I just had a very positive image in my mind of what women were capable of doing so, you know, they weren’t prejudiced, we looked for them, 30:00because we thought they could, could a lot more if they had been given the opportunity to do before. [Very Long Pause] 31:00 White: 32:00In 1980, you allowed a bill prohibiting publicly owned hospitals from performing abortions, and you allowed that bill to become law without your signature. Can you discuss for a minute or two what the climate was in those times, and what your own feelings were then and what they are now...about abortion?

Brown: Yes Ma’am, at the time I felt like, first of all, it, it made no difference what my opinion was, it was law, and second of all, it was such a 33:00highly explosive subject matter, and I took the position, not to weasel out of a hard decision, but I said this isn’t any role for a governor, that’s the legislature. If you’re going to change the constitution, if you’re going to change, you know, the law, it’s the legislature that has to do this and this is not a campaign that I have any business in getting involved in because I can’t do anything about it, rightly or wrongly, whatever I believe in. And it’s been a, a big political issue for twenty-five years without anybody being able to do anything about it, I mean the laws have been the law by the supreme court, as far as allowing abortions, and I didn’t sign any laws that I thought were unconstitutional, and that no doubt was the reason I didn’t sign that law.

White: And that continues to be your position?

Brown: Well I’m pro-choice, the more I’ve learned about it and, but at the time, I really, boy they, they gave you some heart wrenching stories...these people that are, you know, right to life, and I listened to them, and I just decided, 34:00you know, there is nothing I can do about it, why put my hat in that ring, I’ve got plenty of other things I can do, and I just basically was very forward and I said, “you know, there is nothing the governor can we do about this, whatever the law I’ll honor it. And frankly, you know, I’m not sure what my position is right now,” and I just left it at that.

White: We have to talk about the Sikorsky before we [Laughter]....

Brown: Sure.

White: ...break for the day.

Brown: (Okay?).

White: Because there was a running commentary, and I cannot remember, was it Robert (Garrett?)? Somebody in the....

Brown: No, Ed (Riley?), Ed (Riley?) White: ...Ed (Riley?) Brown: Yeah.

White: ...that was it. You, you bought the Sikorsky helicopter, well, you tell the story, and….

Brown: Yeah, well I bought the Sikorsky....

White: It was a s....

Brown: ...it’s right interesting, so we had eleven airplanes. I sold them all, I mean we had the Bahama Mama, and we had every kind of airplane if anybody....

White: We, meaning the state.

Brown: The state, and anybody that wanted to take a trip, whether social or whether otherwise, they had all the airplanes 35:00they needed and so I said, “well, we don’t need all these airplanes, I don’t want them, I don’t want our people on the road trying to fight, figure out ways to get out of the office and go somewhere,” and I said, “the only really piece of equipment I’d heard of that would be effective, I had learned it from my dad, he was the first one to campaign by helicopter, was a helicopter, and we’d researched that Sikorsky was the only really safe one with two motors in it, and they sold for about a million eight, and we’d sold our airplanes I think for two and ha...two and a half million dollars or so, and we bought the Sikorsky in one day, which was unheard of with the Sikorsky Company, because usually it took six months to a year to go through legislative hearings and this and that and bids and all that, and I got a good deal on one and bought it on the spot and it was the best piece of equipment we had in the state government. It got us everywhere. By the time we got into the second half of our term, and this is our third or fourth budget cut, George (Adkins?) mentioned 36:00that John, you know, governor, it might good that you sell the Sikorsky because it’s a symbol of spending money that we are trying to do just the opposite about belt tightening. I said, “well, that’s fine, let’s sell it,” having not checked out what the market value or what we could get for it, and after I checked it out, I had to reverse my position, because we couldn’t get anything for it, the market was down, and…I don’t regret making that decision other then [than] when I said, I’d sell it, I probably should have known more about what the market conditions were, and whether or not we could have gotten a good fu...full value, but I say that at the end of the four years I could have sold it for what I paid for and it paid for itself many times over. Not only the people of Kentucky loved seeing it come to their town, but it was an effective tool, you’d get to the mountains in forty minutes, you’d get to Louisville in twenty minutes, you could get to even west Kentucky, in an hour, and it was a fastest helicopter and the safest. Unfortunately we burned it, it went down, and I am not sure why, but it had the safest 37:00record of any, any helicopter company in the world, and I am a nervous flier, so I felt like that was a very advanta...tageous piece of equipment, it was not a luxury but Ed (Rhyme?) was, you know, trying to make a...you know, he was trying to make something cute out of, you know, the governor promised but, let me say this, this wasn’t a promise I’d made before the fact, it wasn’t like if I run for governor, you do something for me. It wasn’t one where there is consideration on the other side and so I didn’t feel like changing my mind on that was reneging on anybody at all, but I had just taken a new position on it, but he was having fun with it and…I didn’t regret it, let him have his fun, but [Laughter – White] I just couldn’t get the value and, and I think I, you know, we got all the...utilization out of that, I don’t think any other administration could have gotten.

White: And at one point you offered to give it to the legislature or something, there was something about that.

Brown: I may give it to them and let them decide if they wanted to sell it, you know, because the market was down on it and I didn’t care about what kind of airplane other that I am a nervous flyer. I don’t like to fly airplanes, and the helicopter I felt safe in, and 38:00I got all over the state because of the helicopter, and I utilized my time, so it was, it, it’s proven out and ma...many people said, best piece of equipment the state government had, but they forg...they soon forgot that I sold eleven airplanes, I mean I really cleaned out the airplane department, and I think this was the best value and I think now those things cost six, seven million dollars, you know, or more, and we had made a good deal, we got the legislature committee, oversight committees approve it, our attorney general, we got all done in one day, they’d never heard of an administration in politics being able to do that but, I don’t regret that, and I did get some flak on it, but, but if I didn’t get flak on that I got it on something else [Laughter] White: I think we’re ready to break.

Brown: Okay. [Pause] White: June 22nd, 1998, and I w... I, I’m back with Governor Brown for another session of oral history, and we’ve just been talking about a commencement address at Eastern Kentucky University 39:00that he gave May 10th, 1980, your comments, please.

Brown: Well I think my charge in this speech which was...that you can do anything you want to and just being from Kentucky or eastern Kentucky, you have as many advantages as you’d have anywhere and it’s all up to the individual and their dreams and the commitment they make in order to reach those dreams, and I, I wrote a speech in the eighth grade that’s been sort of the byproduct of my thinking over the years and I remember I sat down and said, well, you know, what am I going to write about? I remember the title of the speech was ‘Effort Makes Success.’ And I was never known to be that hard a worker and at that age [Chuckling] whether it’s cutting yard or cleaning house, or whatever that my parents would have me do, but I remember a little 40:00dittle, riddle rather that I used and that is, if you think good thoughts, you do good acts, you do good acts, you’ll make good habits, if you build good habits, you’ll build a strong character, and if you build a strong character you’ll be a man my son, which is the last sentence in the poem ‘If,’ but that very thing of, of effort makes success and I pointed out various great success stories that overcame handicaps whether it’s blindness, or deafness, or...Damascenes, that couldn’t speak without walking on the banks of his hometown with pebbles in his mouth and became a with a ( ) straight archers, and just have people overcame handicaps and you see it in the music world or entertainment world, and it’s just a matter of setting goals at what you do best and then making an extra commitment you know, most people work forty hours a week so imagine if you work sixty or seventy, you’re going to be 50 to 75 percent ahead of your competition, and that’s just been a philosophy and 41:00besides being an entrepreneur, willing to risk failure and trying to do things that I feel like will work, if they don’t work, don’t just quit but change them and make, make your idea ultimately, and I’ve, I always said I’ve had more failures than any success story that, that I know, as an entrepreneur, but none of them were permanent, they were all learning experiences, and that’s why I’ve had so many different successes, it’s because I would try different ventures, and just because it might fail the first or second time I wouldn’t give up, I’d learn from those experiences and then hopefully make something that was my ultimate goal to start with.

White: Can you name some of those failures that, that were learning experiences?

Brown: Oh sure! I, I my ( ) let’s just start with the one, my father ran for public office thirty-one times and so, I completed that legacy, when I ran for governor, I didn’t give up, and I learned enough to make the commitment of what I thought I needed to do in order 42:00to become governor, and my whole passion for running, I think I got from my father and his frustrations with trying to fight the political machines. I think in basketball, I started out with the Kentucky Colonels and ended up with the Boston Celtics and even though I sold them I, you know, I maneuvered up to end up with probably the best franchise in basketball, and the business I just came out of, roasters, you know, I tried it three or four times, John Y. Chicken Grill, and Lay Chicken Grill, I pioneered that whole category of, of roasted chicken and then I sold out about two years ago after building about three hundred stores, I, I had a steak house in Louisville called Buck Heads, and I ended up with Road House Grill where we had forty-six roadhouses, did over a hundred million dollars in sales and, but each one of these I failed first, but I didn’t really fail, I learned what I needed to know. Jessie Jackson, I think said it best “you get your learning from your burning.” 43:00And, and I have always believed that and so...I guess what I learned, when I went to Harvard is that there are no geniuses, and you, you don’t have to be a genius to run IBM, or General Motors, and if you work hard at something that you believe in and if you’ve got a good vision, then there is just a world of opportunities, sort of endless, and here I’ve been through like four or five careers and each one ends up as good or better than the one before, I mean I was fifty-eight years old when I went to Florida, and really had my most major business successes, by myself, I didn’t even have a secretary, but I had the wisdom, I had the credibility, and I had the self-confidence that I could do it, and self-confidence, without that you’re not going to do anything.

White: Let me just check something here. [Pause] White: Anything 44:00else on that subject....

Brown: Yes, I probably is....

White: ...before I ask the next thing?

Brown: ...it’s probably no one, I don’t say this in a self-serving matter but there’s probably no one that’s been as successful in so many different fields that I have been, whether it be business or whether it be sports, or whether it’d be politics, or even some I have never done before, like four telethons [Chuckling]. I mean I’ve always enjoyed venturing out into new and un-chartered territories like ‘Chicken by George,’ you know, we competed against billion dollar companies, we did it in our kitchen, with...a couple of employees, and that’s why you can’t be fearful that you can’t do something because...worrying about the competition, or worrying about...well anyway, I’ve learned that’s the bureaucracy of big corporations really are not very effective competitors, because they get all bogged down in, in not being able to make decisions 45:00and being an entrepreneur is trying to create something to fill a need in business. And so I’ve been fortunate to be able to do that in six or seven different businesses from scratch, and that’s been fun and frustrating. I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed business because I was always creating, and I was always, and I tried to improve it and make it better and then ultimately, I ended up selling out.

White: Do you think of yourself--just because of that last comment you made, do you think of yourself primarily as a businessman, or primarily as a...public servant?

Brown: Well, I think I was born and raised with the philosophy of a public servant, and the most useful productive, contributory time of my life was when I served as governor. There is nothing even close to it and it was a much easier role because you don’t have to make a profit, you don’t have to compete with anybody and I’ve really had a commitment to clean it up, because, you know, Kentucky has been corrupt 46:00in political since the days we are born, and this is my one chance to change it, which we did, and…I would think though, in, in hindsight I probably had more involvement in being a businessman, but more fulfillment and passion, and I think my greatest accomplish...accomplishment in life was not only getting to be governor, but the four years of accomplishments that are documented.

White: What drove or drives you as a businessman. Is it, what is the motivation?

Brown: Just money.

White: It’s, it’s not, it’s not competing to win, it’s not, it’s to, it’s to make money.

Brown: It’s to make money, strictly a commercial...involvement.

White: Okay. Let me go back to the subject of education if I can....

Brown: Mm-mm.

White: ...since we started out talking about that speech 47:00at Eastern Kentucky. How do you educate a person to be a good citizen? I’m mindful of what you said the last time about more practical courses are needed in order to make a person....

Brown: Qualified.

White: ...more effective in the, in the world, yeah, qualified? Does being a good citizen enter into that at all? Or is that something you pick up along the way?

Brown: I think you pick it up from your mother and your daddy, and your church, and your community, and your role models. What I was referring to is, is we need to teach in college the kind of education that are going to allow people to build a career out of what they learn, I mean this idea of going to school five, six, seven, eight years at the prime of life just to learn about life, I, I, I don’t think that’s the most productive use of our time, frankly.

White: That’s the job of the home?

Brown: No-no, I’m talking about in school, in college.

White: Right.

Brown: You know, the, the theory 48:00of the educators, scholars is that we’re going to feed you a, about, you know, everything you might want to learn, I mean out of life, and I just thinking gee, you’re twenty years of age and be...it’s about time you get prepared to have a career, and most of our kids come out of college with no idea what they’re going to do, and here is the prime of life for them to be trained and why wouldn’t I be trained, if someone could have set me down and said, “you know, I’m going to be a businessman, I’ve got a quick financial mind, I am a salesman, I have high energy, I have the attributes of an entrepreneur, in fact I played poker and different things in my background in growing up, and they would have pointed me towards business whereby I would have learned how to manage, how to organize, something about finance, and economics, and entrepreneurialism and the psychology of dealing with people, and selling, and marketing, and promotion and all those things have been a great time for me to really learn which I look back in college, other than the law degree, I didn’t really learn anything 49:00that I felt contributed to my business ( )--I didn’t know how to read a balance sheet or P&L and we live in a commercial world, like it or not, and, and, when you get out of college, then it’s a matter of how do you survive, and, and how you build your future, and we just don’t prepare our people for their own individual careers.

White: Lastly on the subject of education, what about your relationship with KET? It’s seems to me the executive management commission study didn’t find it to be an efficient...while you were governor. Do you remember much about relationships with it, or, or how it was, if it was made to encourage to improve or any of those things, or was that taken care of by someone else?

Brown: No, I’ve always, I’ve always had a great deal of respect for KET and their goals, and I do remember the expense, but I think it was in its infancy at that time, but I think over the years, it’s proven itself to...to 50:00be worthy.

White: Okay. On, on, back to the subject of intra...attracting business to Kentucky, you mentioned that you had done some, I guess laying of the groundwork perhaps for attracting UPS and Toyota? Do you remember what was involved in that?

Brown: Sure. The UPS I remember we had all their management down here the first derby and Phyllis had them out here and we had a big derby party, probably a thousand people, but they were business people from all over the world, from the Donald Trumps and Bunker Hunts, to Mohamed Ali, it was a, sort of exciting gathering of people, and I remember that night before the derby party, we met with all the UPS officials and we paraded all our business type executives, that were our cabinet secretaries, we asked them what they wanted, and within thirty days we had it down to the legislature, 51:00and I think they were impressed with running government like a business management we had, and we could sit as peers of theirs, you know, we had people that had run hundred-million-dollar companies and related to what their needs were, and Bruce Lundsford got all the type of legislation, the tax credits for airplane equipment, and the, certain things they needed in order to compete, and Toyota, we set up the first foreign office in Asia, and...because we, we could visualize the Japanese and the banking community from Asia wanting to move somewhere in this part of the United States, and we made the initial contact with Toyota, and I think one reason they chose Kentucky is they always loved Kentucky Fried Chicken over there, it was their most popular food and their sort of most popular song for a foreign song was ‘My old Kentucky Home.’ And so, I felt, you know, we were very directly involved with Toyota, and....

White: Because they, Toyota was brought in here under Martha Lane Collins....

Brown: Yeah, but we....

White: ...but something like this takes years and years?

Brown: No, but we made the initial contact, and we worked up the prospect and, and they negotiated a deal. 52:00White: Do you remember what it was at the time that GE, who you were fear, afraid of losing, what they did not like about Louisville other than the Courier Journal? Were there other problems that needed rectifying?

Brown: Well, those, the, the labor unions had given them a, a hard time because every time they had a layoff the Courier Journal would publish some front page story about some dissident employee from the beer, the local beer plug--pub not being able to pay the rent and sort of a sad story that created a very negative image for GE and the community. And they didn’t feel like they were getting any full help or cooperation, everybody was fighting them. And so I went to Mr. Cassidy who was the head of the electrical workers and ma--and a big union at, at GE, and got him to, I think step forward with an air of cooperation and support of GE management, 53:00and I went to Mr. Bingham of the Courier Journal and showed them where they had been so prejudiced, over the years, we gave them copies of all the anti-GE...editorial, and then we invited Jack Welsh to the derby, and…who was the CEO, he still is, and…it, it was a, a water, it was a worthwhile contact, and I think if I look back, I contacted on all the, I made contact with all the major CEOs of all the major industries and companies in Kentucky, just to let them know I’m interested in them, I appreciate their business and what can I do to help them, and GE is, was, and still is our largest employer, but after that meeting with Mr. Welsh which he said, no way, he wanted out of Louisville, out of the Courier Journal’s grasp, he came back in within two years and made a forty-million dollar expansion, I think, on their...I 54:00don’t know, it was bathtub or something that GE whatever they make, and, and that, and they remained our number one employer. But just the fact that you, you know, if they had somebody they, they, that was on their side and that would do something to help them, and you know, usually business has been ignored, it’s been looked down on with government--not anymore but, back when I started, we were probably the first to, to admit we’re business people and run government like a business, and economic development, and it sold, people in Kentucky understood what that meant, and you go around the country, that’s the main thrust of all these states ( ) where before it was hardly ever mentioned.

White: What is it that had, that created those attitudes, in other words, w...at, it sounds to me as that what you’re describing is an anti-business attitude in the state of Kentucky....

Brown: Oh, no?

White: ...or was then.

Brown: Mm-mm.

White: Where did that come from?

Brown: Well that came from politicians, I mean, if you look back 55:00over the whole country, how many businessmen have ever been a governor of a state? There is not a handful of them and before I was, I don’t know of any, not only Kentucky, but all over the United States, and it’s usually politicians that had a career out of going to the legislature, and they were usually lawyers and then they got in the political system and they always beat on business as the rich bad guy, and instead of saying, hey, here is what where we get our jobs, here is where we get our revenues for our taxes, and here is where we get the resources to build, you know, our various resources in the state, and it was pretty, they were just always been used as the, as the boogey man, and yet it was the very hard. (For a moment?), when I ran for governor, I was thinking what about, what will I do if I didn’t run? And I remember sitting down with...the...publisher of the Courier Journal, I can say that now, (Barry Bean, Jr.?) and he asked me about thirty years ago, you know, if I ever ran for governor...what, 56:00how would I see Louisville, and I said, “well what I’d do in Louisville, I’d do the same thing Atlanta did, and they have a man named (Ivan Alan?) there that had the slogan, you know, Lord deliver me from the way we are, and he went out and he tried to attract banks and industry and regional offices and they built what maybe the model city in the United States, it’s just had of the Olympics here two years ago, it was all on attitude and goals, and I remember ( ) Jr. s…comment and he said, “oh that’d be terrible for Louisville, I wish we could build a fence around and lock everybody else out.” So, you know, that’s what happens, it’s like the Russians, they had that old, bureauc…bureaucratic…type thinking until the new blood came in and it never changed, and that’s the same thing with Louisville, until the Binghams and the old, the old, the old blue bloods have their day, you are not going to change it. And now you got, you know, quite a, quite a bit of different vibrant 57:00leadership in Louisville.

White: And are, w…were you saying that this was the case nationwide and not just in Kentucky in….

Brown: Oh yeah….

White: …the 1970s and probably ‘80s?

Brown: …and they probably looked down on business [clears throat] I ( ) businessman and proud of it and everybody knew I made my money honestly and it is well known, I think the people of Kentucky were proud of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and, and you boil down, you know, business really, I mean, government really is and should be run like a business, every aspect of it. I mean, how do you build a school, how do you organize the, the teachers and how you train them, and how you build a road, and how you build a medical facility, I mean most of the decisions you make in state government where it comes to spending money needs to be invested and developed in, in a business-like manner.

White: And speaking of running government like a business….

Brown: I might add.

White: Okay.

Brown: There most governors have never had experience in managing anything and they go in and they take their entourage of all their political favors 58:00and give them all new jobs and that’s how come we went in, we were able to reduce employment by eight thousand people, from thirty-seven to twenty-nine thousand in short four years without affecting service one iota, and because we’d all managed and we, we knew how to subtract and we weren’t just there to add our people, because most people had never run anything, they think well you need to do this otherwise the person before wouldn’t been doing it. Well, we thought just the opposite, that if they’re doing it this way there must be something wrong with it [Chuckling] so, let’s change it.

White: One of the things you wanted to do while you were governor or, was to abolish the office of secretary of state and some other elective offices. Now that your son is secretary of state, have you re-thought that?

Brown: Well, hum…I wouldn’t want to, you know, do anything to interfere with what his career is, because he chose the office he felt like he could get the best training ground and with the, 59:00relate to better when he ran, public office and…I think he’s done a good job and he’s been innovative in what he’s done with getting on the internet and…you know, really making an office first of all, and more efficient, but I don’t think they need the office and, but I think he is doing a, a very effective, if not an outstanding job, but we don’t need a secretary of state and some of these, you know, treasurers, because it’s not really the treasurer, you know, and, that it is all part of the governor’s apparatus to run the state and all you’re doing is making his operation more political ( ) and ( ) these different constitutional offices.

White: So, all of these tasks 60:00are rightly taken care of by the governor’s office, the tasks of….

Brown: Well yeah, other….

White: …secretary of state and treasurer.

Brown: …than attorney general, which is the checks and balances, and you know, you don’t need a secretary, you, you didn’t need a secretary of education…because that’s, that whole budget is under the governor’s domain.

White: Do you remember…having kitchen cabinet meetings with randomly selected state employees?

Brown: Mm-mm.

White: How don’t know how long that lasted. What was the purpose and how long did they last, and were they fruitful?

Brown: I think they were, and…just gave me a chance to ask state employees what did they think, and what are their ideas, what did they like to, you know, what they think we ought to be doing we are not doing, yeah, we had a number of them. I thought, I thought, thought they were very…very insightful.

White: Do you happen to remember any, say one thing that came out of them? It’s been a long time.

Brown: Yeah, the, the best comment I got in four years in my administration, 61:00I may have repeated this before but was from a fellow named (Amato?) in the department of human services, because we were all business people and we ran like a business but at the same time, we knew how to delegate to other people and get them to do jobs that we couldn’t do, and so for the first time, the state government got s…non-bureaucratic and sort of entrepreneurial where, you know, we would give someone assignment and it didn’t make any difference what the politics was, it didn’t make any difference if they happened to fail, you know, we would just say, okay, you are not fired, you know, you learn from that and do this and we will help you. And I think there is a, an air of freedom, and, and non-political shackles that made the state government really fun for state employees, and I remember Mr. (Amato?) that had been there thirty-one years said, “governor, we just want to thank you for, you know, giving us a chance to do our jobs, and the freedom to do it, and the boundaries 62:00by which we can be successful, and without repercussion of politics,” and that to me, that was a, the highest compliment of management that I could have gotten.

White: Who was in charge of judicial appointments? The Courier Journal wrote an editorial praising the high quality of your judicial appointments. Do you remember if, what kind of hand you, yourself took in that, or whether other people….

Brown: No, I did….

White: …took it on?

Brown: …I, I, I made all those decisions but I had good briefing, and I have [to] give June Taylor credit, when I made her chief of staff, she had been a secretary down in the state government for thirty-one years and I think she is the first woman chief of staff in the country, and she was great, she knew the quality of people, she knew the credibility of people, she had been in government for thirty years, and she was very effective in recommending 63:00the backgrounds and giving me the full disclosure on anyone I was going to name and I was very careful about it, but I got my information from June.

White: Was that something that was important to you?

Brown: Well just pa….

White: The judiciary?

Brown: It was a part of the, of the governor’s job, and all of it was important, you know, whether it’s pardons, or whatever else, and you know, I, I didn’t take anything in state government lightly, as far as my responsibility to make decisions. I read more in those four years than I did in the prior thirty.

White: That, what do you remember about the prison trustee detail at the executive mansion? I gather prisoners were used as help around the mansion.

Brown: Mm-mm, mm-mm.

White: Do you remember how that got going, or….

Brown: It had been here for years….

White: …what the thinking was?

Brown: … and decades.

White: Oh, that was not original, that was something, okay, that you inherited. 64:00When you were governor, there were a number of articles in the newspapers about your enjoyment of gambling, and I noticed you just connected it in your speech with--poker, with being an entrepreneur.

Brown: Mm-mm.

White: There was a, a, an incident of a transfer of a great deal of money from a bank in Miami, and a federal grand jury investigated it. Would….

END OF INTERVIEW