Q&A: A Longtime Bob Dole Staffer And Southampton Resident Says His Legacy Is 'Immeasurable'

When longtime Republican U.S. senator and former presidential candidate Bob Dole died on December 5 at the age of 98, he was mourned by the country, and remembered not only for his many years as a elected official willing to reach across the aisle but also as a World War II hero.

The native of Kansas grew up in a large family against the backdrop of the Dust Bowl era, and was familiar with the financial hardships that hit so many American families during the Great Depression. At a young age, he was seriously wounded in action during World War II, and took a long road to recovery that changed the trajectory of his life.

Dole became a household name during the quarter-century he spent in the Senate, and became an even more well-known public figure once he retired from political life after losing the race for president to Bill Clinton in 1996.

While his name carried with it instant recognition, few knew him as well as the loyal staffers who spent many years working for him. Southampton resident Joyce Giuffra was one of them.

Giuffra is a member of the Southampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals and also serves as the treasurer of the Southampton Village Improvement Association. She went to work for Bob Dole as part of a college internship during her sophomore year at Dartmouth College in 1989, and it ultimately transitioned into a full-time job that spanned many years.

Giuffra recently took time to reminisce about the years she worked for Dole, what made him such a great leader and politician, and the legacy he will leave behind.

Q: You first worked for Bob Dole when you were a college student at Dartmouth, as part of the Dartmouth College Government Program, and you were a sophomore at the time. You spent a semester interning for him in Washington D.C. What were your first impressions of him, and what was that experience like for you?

He was a giant to us, coming from Kansas. As a college student, I was somewhat aware of his presidential aspirations but, quite frankly, more what he had done for the state of Kansas, both as a congressman and then as a senator. He was really a towering figure, definitely in the state, but then, I began to learn, too, on the national scene.

I began to realize how much he was involved with, in terms of legislation and being a Republican leader in the Senate. He was extremely busy, always trying to juggle his responsibilities to the state, foremost, as well as his separate office that he kept as Republican leader, sometimes majority leader.

It was a great experience. I was in the Kansas office, which was in the Hart Building, across the street from the Capitol. I spent a lot of my time helping draft responses to constituent letters and doing some policy research, as well as sometimes running mail, or files, across the street in the Senate subway, from the Hart Building, which ran underground, up to the Capitol.

Q: Eventually, you ended up working for Bob Dole in a full-time capacity. You became his press secretary at a certain point, is that right?

Yes.

Q: Tell me a little bit about how long you worked for him, and in what capacities.

After I graduated from college, my first job was in the Bush White House. I was there for two years as a press assistant, in the White House Office of Media Affairs. Then I took a brief detour after that time, after Bush lost the election, to work on a lieutenant governor’s race in Virginia. That woman who ran, and lost, was very close friends with Sheila Burke, who was Senator Dole’s chief of staff in the Republican leader’s office. She put in a recommendation on my behalf to Sheila Burke, and told her that I was interested in coming to work for him, or coming back to work for him.

My first job was as deputy press secretary in the Republican leader’s office. I worked in that capacity — we were a two-person press operation — I worked in that capacity from 1994, about February through March of 1994 to June 1996, when he resigned from the Senate.

Q: That’s when he ran for president. At that time?

Right. There were a lot of rumors that he was thinking of running, and then when he announced, it got increasingly difficult for him to balance his duties as, then, majority leader, because in 1994, November, the Republicans won back the majority. There was a lot of pressure on him to balance his responsibilities between then, being majority leader, and running for president.

After some contentious primaries, he won the nomination. I think it was a really difficult decision, but one that he really deliberately made. He basically said, “I want to give this a final shot, dedicate all my time and energy.”

Literally, the day he announced that he was leaving the Senate, retiring his seat, we all looked at each other and we thought, “What now?” He was very kind — a couple of hours later, he came to my boss and myself, and said, “I think that the campaign, the presidential campaign, needs some additional communications help.” At that moment, it was pretty much seamless. I went and worked on the media staff for the Dole ’96 presidential campaign, and my title over there was director of media affairs. I worked with them there from June-July, to the end of the presidential campaign.

Q: What was that experience like? In reading I’ve done about him, there seems to be this idea that he was really skilled as a senator, did a lot of great things, was able to make deals, and that was a really good fit for him. The whole performance, if that’s the right word, that you need to bring to bear when you’re on the campaign trail, maybe wasn’t as comfortable of a role for him. Tell me what your impressions were of him at that time.

He definitely was a skilled presidential candidate. He was the Republican, the party’s nominee, for vice president with [Gerald] Ford in 1976. That’s, quite frankly, the closest that he got to being in the White House. He ran again in ’88 and ’96.

He was definitely very skilled, politically. I think when it came to communicating, the press, with the media, he felt a little frustrated. Quite frankly, it was a shift in mindset between being in the Senate, where he was covered by these congressional correspondents that he really knew as friends, and he had this rapport with them, walking from his office down to the Senate floor, back and forth, to cast votes, they sometimes would have more official stakeouts where he would make comments to the print and broadcast media. He had this very casual, off-the-cuff relationship with them. Then, when he moved over to the presidential campaign, every single thing that he said was really put under a microscope — or maybe a microphone, even both. That was, really, it became a shift in mindset for him.

Another thing, too, unfortunately, is that there was a split between this philosophy from the Senate staff and the campaign staff. There was a long conversation because the Senate staff was always of the mindset, “Let Dole be Dole.” Sure, he was going to make some mistakes, but we really wanted the public to see him for who he was, his great sense of humor and his great character.

The campaign staff really was trying to package him to be this perfect person in this bubble, that he wasn’t. He’s human. That was an uncomfortable fit for him.

Then, after the election, when he lost, I think one of his most famous appearances was on David Letterman. He had the audience, and he had David Letterman, in stitches. Even David Letterman said, “Oh my gosh, Bob. I wish you had let the American people see this side of you.” I think that was very telling.

Q: Let’s talk a little bit about his earlier life, too. Obviously, what happened to him in World War II became a huge part of who he was. And he grew up in Kansas with the backdrop of the Great Depression, and the Dust Bowl. Tell me a little bit about, from your vantage point, how you saw that informed his life and made him into the person he was.

One thing I just wanted to say, really quick, back to my background, just to provide some more perspective, is that after he lost the election in November ’96, I went off, took a few days off after the 96-hour tour, and we’d been working nonstop. I got two calls from his assistant, who actually still works for him to this day, and said, “The senator really wants you to call him.” I thought, “Oh my gosh. What’s going on now?”

It was literally about a week after the election, he called me and asked me to come back to work for him. I stayed with him from, basically, November 1996 until I got married in September 1998. I transitioned with him from the life … He’s always a public figure, but now, more a private citizen. That transition was … I feel very honored to have also been with him for that part of his life, as well.

Back to the perspective. I think that he never forgot where he came from, and really what shaped him. I feel being a Kansan, especially being of the Depression and the Dust Bowl era, was who he was from the start to the end. And then also his experience in the war, were the two things that really shaped him.

I’m sure you’ve read, his family was really, as everybody of that era, hit by hard times financially. They ended up renting their house to boarders. The whole family moved into the basement. I have to say, he always had a concern for people who faced hardship, disabilities, in their life. I think when he came back [from World War II] and spent 39 months in a cast, spending all that time reflecting in the hospital, and worrying about what he was going to do with his life, he, I think, really knew the importance and the responsibility of trying to make another chapter for himself. Boy, did he ever do that.

I think he did so much publicly — in terms of advocating for veterans, he was one of the main sponsors and authors of the American with Disabilities Act, the ADA. Quite frankly, without him, I don’t think the legislation would have passed. He was very instrumental about reaching across the aisle to get things done. He always famously said, “We’re a first-class democracy. There’s no such thing as a second-class citizen in a first-class democracy.”

Q: It seemed that some of things that he did reach across the aisle for, maybe that weren’t things that were top of mind for his fellow Republicans and Conservatives, did come probably from the experience he had. For instance, he supported the food stamp program. Those seem like causes where you can draw a direct line to his personal knowledge of what it’s like to struggle financially. And he also knew what it’s like to live with disability.

Definitely. He was very instrumental in getting bipartisan support for Social Security, also for Medicare. Then, he worked with George McGovern, a Democrat, on the food stamp program. Part of that was WIC, which was Women, Infants and Children, to provide school lunch programs, to provide nutrition support for mothers and children. Social Security, Medicare, the food stamp program, with WIC, as well as ADA, I think those were all landmark pieces of legislation.

He was really a good government Republican, is how I would view him. He really came from an era where he saw assistance as something that was very necessary, when it was done thoughtfully, and done in the right way.

Another thing, too, is that he was able to finish his college, and his law degree, with the help of the GI Bill. He also spoke about that, a lot, the importance of government funding assistance for veterans to come back and be supportive for their sacrifice, and be able to continue their education.

Q: Tell me a little bit more about that transition into life as a private citizen. It seemed like he was able to let more of his personality fly. I know even later in life, when he was featured in commercials, he leaned into that self-deprecating thing, about how he had tried to run for president several times and it didn’t work out for him. Tell me what your impressions were of him in that later part of his life, and even up until his death. How he evolved, in terms of his life as a public figure.

It was so amazing, because I think there were a lot of things that he really knew that he wanted to do, and that were issues that were important to him. He was, obviously, chairman of the World War II Memorial, and he put together an amazing team to raise $100 million for the memorial. I was so fortunate, because I was able to help him with that. I basically did all the communications for the fundraising campaign for that. That was a huge point of pride.

He also was appointed by the State Department to chair a commission on missing persons of Bosnia, coming after the Bosnian War. He spent a lot of time on that, and traveling to Bosnia, Yugoslavia, and meeting with the heads of state there. He also was pretty instrumental in trying to expand NATO membership for a lot of the Eastern European countries. Those were things that were an extension of what he had done in the Senate, as he continued to step into the private arena.

It also was pretty amazing, because he had sort of been a staple on the Sunday talk shows in Washington, D.C., but then he made a transition into the public enjoying and really appreciating his humor. He was on David Letterman, he had a great relationship with Jay Leno.

We flew to California once with him, and he gave the traffic report from a helicopter in Los Angeles, over the freeway on the way from Los Angeles to Burbank. He had, really, a long, great friendship with Jay Leno, who would send him telegrams from Western Union on Veterans Day thanking him for his service. They had a great relationship.

A lot of these public figures always are in demand on the speaking circuit. He was represented by two different speaker’s bureaus. He wrote a couple books on presidential wit and wisdom, presidential humor. Unexpectedly, we started getting calls coming from different companies, wanting him to appear.

The first ad that he appeared in was for Air France. I have to go look back to see what the tagline was, but they used a photo of them saying something like, “You don’t have anything to do?” He was waving. They played off on that. That was one of the first ones, Air France. He did a Dunkin’ Donuts ad, he did a Visa Check Card ad for the Super Bowl. Then he also did a Pepsi ad.

Q: With Britney Spears, correct?

With Britney Spears. That was not one of my favorites.

At one point, he was represented by two different talent agencies. We came to New York, and I was with him. I felt all of a sudden I moved from a presidential campaign, to becoming a talent agent. My phone was ringing off the hook. It was a lot of fun to help him navigate that.

Q: I would love to hear what your thoughts are on your career in Washington, D.C. You began there, at a time when I would imagine there weren’t as many women in certain roles. Culture and life have evolved. As a woman, working in Washington, D.C., what was that like for you, and did it evolve over the years, or did it just feel natural from the start?

I have to say, on the whole, it felt pretty natural from the start. Of course, I was about 25 years old when I joined his staff in the Republican leader’s office. I think since I’d worked in the White House before, I was used to a very high-pressure political environment.

I do have to say that because of Sheila Burke as chief of staff, and because of him, I feel very fortunate, because he really, I have to say, truly hired such an intelligent, experienced staff. Not only that, probably more importantly, they were really high-quality people.

There was a group of about eight of us who had lunch together after his memorial in Washington. That was a very rare sense of family that developed in those friendships. I think part of it, because we were young, we were in this high-pressure situation. I think a lot of it, too, is that we all shared this common loyalty to him, and to support each other. I feel that particular experience is hard to replicate. Two or three of my close friends are still people I met in Senator Dole’s office.

In terms of being a woman, I felt, for a person of his era, he had very high respect for women. Our chief of staff, Sheila Burke, was one of the first women, maybe the only woman, to be chief of staff at that high level at that time. She was a nurse by training, and she helped him navigate a lot of health care legislation in the Senate, as well as did a lot of work on Senate Finance Committee. She was extremely intelligent. He also appointed the first woman secretary of the Senate, which was pretty unusual. We had, really, the first woman chief of staff for the Republican leader’s office, he appointed the first woman secretary of the Senate, which is a very powerful position.

A woman by the name of Joann Koe ran Campaign America, which was his PAC. She was very influential in his political fundraising.

Of course, last but not least, he had a very powerful woman in his wife, Elizabeth Dole.

I would say about half of our staff were women, all in very senior positions.

Q: Tell me about some of your final interactions with him before his death — what you’ll remember most about him, what you think his enduring legacy will be.

[Pauses, tearful] It was a lifelong honor to work for him. I had amazing experiences — I was able to travel all around the world with him, and all across the country. He really leaves a legacy that is immeasurable. I think he touched so many lives.

Also, I feel on the private side of him, as a person, I never expected that I was going to have this lifelong friendship with him, which I feel so blessed to have.

After he was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer, which was in January of this year, he started making calls to a lot of his friends and a lot of the close staff. One day, I was running out of the lobby of my building, and he called me. I ended up spending 45 minutes on the phone with him. I didn’t think it was going to be the last time that I talked to him. I could tell that he really wanted to express a lot of gratitude to his staff.

He did that to the very end. I think that’s the person that he was. He realized, he was so humble, and he really realized that he was probably in this position, too, thanks to the support of his staff. Where, in turn, we were the ones who were feeling so honored to support him in the small ways we could.

My husband and I went to see him in October, probably about four or five weeks before he passed. We went to visit him at his apartment in the Watergate. He definitely was frail, but his mind was still so amazingly sharp. We spent 45 minutes with him, reminiscing over old stories. It was actually thanks to him that I met my husband, because my husband was also working in Washington during that time. If it were not for Bob Dole, my husband and I wouldn’t have met.

It was a little bit poignant, because two days after he passed away, I opened my door, and I saw a box there, which said … I cut and kept the label. It said, “Merry Christmas from Bob and Elizabeth Dole.”

For many years, he always sent Christmas turkeys and hams to his staff. That was a little poignant to receive that gift two days after he had passed away.

There were so many stories, but I think it was the kindness that he extended to people. He paid for college tuition for several Senate staffers’ children who couldn’t afford to do that. He was extremely gracious and supportive of this huge number of his sister’s children, nieces and nephews.

Once, late at night, I was sitting there writing a speech in the law firm, probably in 1997. A man came in who was taking out the trash, cleaning the carpets, who couldn’t speak English. I heard the senator go in, and he took money out of his pocket and handed the man $100 and said, “I hope you can take your family out to dinner this week.”

It was all his thoughtfulness, and all his graciousness that he extended to people, that was just unseen.

I also remember, too, that on the 96-hour campaign, I think it became clear to him that he was not going to win. He said, “We really have to do this for the good of the party, to try to shore up the support for the House and the Senate seats. This is not so much about me, but it’s for the strength of the party.” He said, “I think we’re just going to campaign nonstop for 96 hours.” The amount of energy and vibrancy that a 75-year-old man brought to that campaign, in the final hours.

A couple of times he came onto that plane at 3 o’clock in the morning, and he was looking at his good hand, and it was covered in bruises. He said, “This is a sign of all the hands that I’m shaking on the campaign trail.”

He was somebody who really gave his all, and he had a life of sacrifice.