John Shearer: Recollections Of Interviewing Bill Brock Twice

  • Friday, March 26, 2021

In June 1974, I had just finished my eighth-grade year at Baylor School and was visiting the U.S. Capitol while on a national optometric association convention trip to Washington, D.C., with my parents, Dr. and Mrs. Wayne Shearer.

 

We were getting on the elevator after visiting one or both of the chambers as tourists, and whom did we also see on there but then-U.S.

Sen. Bill Brock from Lookout Mountain. My father quickly introduced himself, and Sen. Brock nodded and said hello in a friendly manner, although not in a back-slapping style, and briefly chatted with us.

 

It was a scene that today likely would not be duplicated due to tighter security at the Capitol, unless we had been officially invited guests of one of the elected office holders.

 

I was old enough to have followed Mr. Brock’s later years as a Congressman and then-U.S. senator beginning in 1971 and was quite familiar with him, so for some reason I was not starstruck seeing him. If I had seen one of my favorite athletes at the time, that might have been a different story.

 

Years later, after he was long retired from holding any fulltime public positions, I had a chance to interview him over the phone on two separate occasions marking milestones. I had initiated an interview in early 2007 due to the fact that Bob Corker had just become the first U.S. senator from Chattanooga since Mr. Brock. And then I did another interview in 2012, when it had been 50 years since Mr. Brock’s memorable election as the first Republican congressman from the Third District in decades.

 

I enjoyed both conversations as he amicably and honestly answered my questions over the phone about his career. And, after hearing the news of his unfortunate death on Thursday at the age of 90, I thought about those interviews as well as running into him nearly 50 years ago.

 

When I interviewed him, I was helped getting in touch with him through his son, Oscar Brock. I had also known some of the other Brock family members. I crossed paths with his other son, Bill Brock, when I went back to school to get a master’s degree at UTC in education in the early 2000s and had a class or two with him. I remember Bill IV had a natural gift for articulating well in a classroom discussion, and I guess I would not expect any less from the son of a former U.S. senator.

 

And Oscar’s wife, Meg, whom I had known since high school, had always been nice and prompt in helping me back when I was working for the Chattanooga Free Press and she was helping with public relations at Girls Preparatory School.

 

Sen. Brock’s grandfather, the founder of the Brock candy company known for its chocolate-covered cherries, had once been appointed to complete a U.S. senator term, while the recently deceased senator’s father had also made his mark. I remember reading that Bill Brock Jr. had headed up some kind of business or community group tasked with making some aspect of Chattanooga’s integration efforts go more smoothly, and that would seem to deserve much praise in hindsight.

 

I cannot remember which phone conversation I had with the recently deceased Sen. Brock, but during one of them, he might have been working out in his garden and maybe had to end the convivial conversation after a half hour or so to get ready to go somewhere.

 

During both of them, though, he kindly answered my questions. I remember that during the first conversation in 2007, he was quite pleased to see that Bob Corker had been elected, and not just because he was from Chattanooga.

 

“He is exactly the kind of caring, thoughtful and entrepreneurial individual we need in Washington. He doesn’t seem to have a mean bone in his body,” former Sen. Brock told me.

 

The former senator, who was then living in Annapolis, Md., talked plenty about his own career as well, saying he had become interested in politics after serving in the Navy and admiring how President Dwight Eisenhower had ended the Korean War.

 

He was only 31 when he was elected to Congress in 1962 after beating Wilkes Thrasher, a Kennedy Democrat. Mr. Brock admitted surprise at winning at a time when the Third District usually voted Democrat. 

 

“Darn if I didn’t get elected the first time I ran,” he recalled with a laugh. “I had a terrific crowd of young people supporting me at that time.”

 

He recalled that then-U.S. Sen. Estes Kefauver, a former Chattanoogan and Democrat, had approached him afterward about hosting a dinner party for Rep. Brock in the days when non-partisanship still prevailed to an extent.

 

“He went out of his way to make me feel welcome,” Mr. Brock said. “That taught me so much how politics ought to work.”

 

He said that not long after he began serving in Congress, some thought he should challenge U.S. Sen. Albert Gore Sr., the father of the future vice president, in 1964. He was not ready then, he said, but he did challenge him in 1970 and defeated this man who had admirably supported civil rights but some thought was too liberal for Tennesseans overall.

 

“I saw him as someone who had emotionally, physically and intellectually left Tennessee,” he said. “I felt like he didn’t represent the values of the people of Tennessee. He was way too liberal.”

 

As a result, Mr. Brock won after running a hard-nosed campaign against him, although Sen. Brock was generally known as being civil and trying to look out for all Tennesseans while serving.

 

After Mr. Brock was elected senator in 1970, he and fellow U.S. Sen. Howard Baker both uniquely shared the same high school alma mater – McCallie School.

 

Former Sen. Brock told me that he found that in the Senate, with fewer colleagues than in the House, legislation could get done more easily at that time and senators did not worry as much about crossing party lines to get work done.

 

After the Watergate scandal that forced Republican President Richard Nixon to resign in 1974, Mr. Brock said Republicans had a tough time getting elected or re-elected for a couple of years, and he lost to Jim Sasser in 1976. Sen. Brock’s income tax payments had also become a campaign issue.

 

But Sen. Brock would go on to resurrect his and the Republican Party’s name. He served as Republican national party chairman and helped Ronald Reagan get elected president in 1980 and would go on to serve as U.S. trade representative and labor secretary under him.

 

He would run for U.S. senator of Maryland in 1994 to serve again and to redeem his 1976 loss in Tennessee, but he lost to Democrat Paul Sarbanes after winning the Republican primary.

 

When I interviewed Mr. Brock the second time in 2012 on the 50th anniversary of being the first Republican elected to Congress from the 3rd District in 42 years, the 81-year-old was still in Annapolis. He also kindly and thoughtfully reminisced again for me.

 

He said that he had returned to Chattanooga in the 1950s to work for the family’s candy company and became active with civic groups like the Chattanooga Jaycees. He said that he and other enthusiastic young people would try to start civic projects but would meet resistance from those used to running everything politically in Chattanooga.

 

They would also meet pushback when he and other Republicans would try to observe elections in this community that had been controlled by the Democrats for decades, although many were traditionally conservative Southern Democrats.

 

“A lot of us just got plain angry,” Mr. Brock said. 

 

They realized the only way to change the system was to try and elect people who stood for their values. And in 1962, after expected Republican congressional candidate Joe Delaney moved out of town, Mr. Brock was tabbed to run for the U.S. House.

 

“The campaign was an absolute blast,” recalled Mr. Brock in 2012. “We didn’t have a lot of money, but we had 4,000 volunteers knocking on doors.”

 

And he did win, creating one of the more memorable political upset victories of recent decades.

 

As longtime Brock office worker Gene Hunt also told me for that 2012 story, “It was an interesting time, the fact that nobody thought he could win.”

 

Mr. Brock was leaving the candy company behind for good, but he would continue to enjoy his own sweet rewards along the way, as well as a few bumps through political losses.

 

But through it all, even after he left political office, he continued to use his gifts and skills in high-profile public service, not just for the Republican Party, but for all of America.

 

* * * * *

 

To read the 2007 story on former Sen. Brock, read here.

https://www.chattanoogan.com/2007/2/6/101157/Chattanoogan-Brock-Was-Last-Local.aspx

 

To see the 2012 interview story with him, click here.

https://www.chattanoogan.com/2012/11/2/237701/Remembering-the-1962-Election-of-Bill.aspx

 

* * * * *

 

Jcshearer2@comcast.net

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