JOHN DONALDSON

                                                October 30, 1996

                                                 Mame Warren,
                                                   Interviewer

Warren: This is Mame Warren. I'm in Atlanta, Georgia. Today is October 30th,
1996, and I'm with John Donaldson.

         I'm going to start off with just the usual question I ask everybody, which is,
why Washington and Lee? Why did you go to Washington and Lee in the first
place? What attracted you?
Donaldson: Well, I went in part because of friends of my parents and in part because
of friends of my own from high school who had gone there. I never met any
alumni who haven't had really great things to say about it, and so that was what
convinced me when I was in high school. I had gone to see Charlottesville and then
went on to Lexington and really fell in love with the campus and the whole
experience, and then confirming that with other friends and friends of my folks. It
was just someplace that I knew I wanted to be and applied early and got in, and that
was that.
Warren: Where did you come from?
Donaldson: From Baltimore.
Warren: Oh, you're kidding! I'm from Annapolis.
Donaldson: Oh, right here.
Warren: I didn't realize you were from Baltimore.
Donaldson: Yeah, Old Line State.
Warren: Yeah, really. Good for you. So then you must have known a lot of people
from W&L.

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Donaldson: Yeah, I did. There was a pretty good crowd. There's always a big crowd
from Baltimore. I had grown up with a few people from home that had gone there
and they liked it, and so they're good salesmen.
Warren: So what did you think you were going do when you went there? Did you
know what you wanted?
Donaldson: No, it was wide open. I think I started sure that I was going to be a C
School major and go on straight into business, and as has happened frequently in
my life, it took a different turn and wound up as a history major with kind of a dual
emphasis on American and African history, and I went into law school after that.
So it worked out well.
Warren: Were there any teachers who made a big impression, who made a
difference to you?
Donaldson: Yeah, let me think who were some of the big ones. I took a lot of classes
in the history department, Professor Merchant, obviously, and his Civil War
emphasis. He'd recreate the battles and generals and life at home during that
period. He really had a gift, or has a gift, for that kind of putting you on the scene.

         And Dr. Porter, as well, who was my advisor for four years and really guided
me in a lot of different ways and kindled an interest in British colonial history and
in history in general. His focus is so broad and he has such a knowledge of so many
different countries and personalities and the legends, really, it's very impressive.
He was a tremendous mentor for me and a great help with law school and that sort
of thing, as well.

         Who else? There were so many. Professor de Maria, who I worked a lot with
the Mock Convention, he's a fantastic guy and a great teacher as well. He and I
worked together on a few independent projects and I learned so much about media
and about filmmaking and that sort of thing.

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         I'm trying to think who else. Professor Connelly, too, who I worked with
Mock Convention. He's really, it seems like has come out and is getting a real
national reputation for commentary. But he really had a tremendous interest in
what we were doing and gave us incredible support all the way, all along the line in
everything from talking to other professors about our workloads to lining up
speakers and everything in between.
Warren: You've mentioned Mock Convention. Why don't we just go for it. How
did you first find out about the Mock Convention and how early did you get
involved?
Donaldson: One of the chairmen from '88 was a member of my fraternity. He
graduated, but one of his classmates had stayed behind and was a fifth year when I
was a freshmen. He, the fifth year who stayed behind, Jeff Schwartz, just raved
about the entire experience and about how we needed to get involved, "we" being
the pledges at the time. So I just did a little research. It was so early at the time, I
mean, it was maybe spring of '89 or maybe it was probably winter of '89, our second
semester my freshmen year, that I don't think anybody else really knew about it, and
so I kind of got a jump on it because I had been primed and been talked to about it.
So I think I just put in an application and had gotten to know some of the interim,
the chairmen that were kind of overseeing in the dormant years, and they gave me
a good recommendation, and then the E. C. appointed me when I was a freshmen,
and then just carried on.
Warren: You were appointed when you were a freshmen?
Donaldson: Yes.
Warren: Appointed to be chair of the-
Donaldson: Well, they did it on an annual basis. They reviewed it every year.
Warren: Explain it all to me, just for posterity. How does it happen?

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Donaldson: The way that it works, and I think it's true with most of the student
organizations that the E. C. controls, is that they accept applications, then they bring
you in for an interview, and then they make their decision from that. For Mock
Convention there were two chairmen for I guess what would have been my
sophomore year. There was one my freshmen year. Because it's quadrennial, the
chairman who was chairman when I was a freshmen was not going to be there for
it. So they knew that was just an interim solution, and so what they did then was
for my sophomore year was they picked me, knowing that I would be around, and
then they continued with the interim chairman who had been chairman when I
was a freshmen, who wasn't going to be around. So that was not a permanent
situation. So I think after that first year, which was in my sophomore year, then my
junior year they appointed two other chairmen to run it through '92.
Warren: So you really were sort of destined to do this.
Donaldson: Well, it worked out that way. It's one of the lucky things that happened
to me.
Warren: So how much of your life did it consume through the four years?
Donaldson: It was probably-for the first two years, it was a pretty big commitment.
There were always things going on that I had to see about and plan for. But really
from the second semester, from winter term of my junior year through winter term
of my senior year, it was probably 60 percent of my time, 70 percent of my time. It
was a pretty intense experience. I haven't replicated that since. Work is obviously
different, but in terms of having that kind of a team project, it was amazing, a
tremendous experience. I'd like to find something similar to it out in the real world
if I could, if I'd get paid for it. But it was a lot of time, though, and it just escalated,
and through the winter term senior year, I mean, it was probably 80 percent of my
time.

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Warren: Did you have any idea when you got started, what Mock Convention
really was?
Donaldson: No, and that's part of the beauty of it, really. I mean, you have this
general idea, you can read the history books, you can look back at old Ring-tum Phis
and figure out sort of what the general premise is, but the fact that you can kind of
create it yourself, you have the overarching principles and you have the
understanding of generally what it is, but when it comes down to the details, that's
where every convention is put together. They can really put their own imprimatur
on the history of it, and that's pretty neat, because the E. C. or a lot of the other
student organizations, I mean, they're very constant and it's a little bit more
evolving than the Mock Convention. The Mock Conventions really-I mean, they
can change dramatically in four years. I mean, that obviously has to do with which
party is the subject of the Mock Convention, but it's pretty neat. You have a lot of
creative power over it, and I think because of that you come away with a lot more
reward in the end because you kind of start from just a really rough outline and you
fill it in from there.
Warren: So how much historical research did you do? How much did you know
about earlier Mock Conventions?
Donaldson: Well, I think every convention tries to leave the next convention some
sort of a testament to what it is that they did and to try to give some detail in terms
of how they prepared and how they selected the various members and management
and chairmen and that sort of thing. But frankly, and I know that the '96 people felt
the same way, or the '96 people realized this, by the end of the experience, recording
it is difficult to do because it's the spring in your senior year, you've kind of come
off this tremendous high, and for a lot of us, we kind of had to salvage our academic
records, as well. So that was not done as well as we would have liked in terms of
preparing the kind of manual to run the next Mock Convention.

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         Because I was interested in it and interested in W&L history, I did a lot of
research in terms of going back to old pictures and reading old Phi articles and stuff
like that, and so I liked that part. I spent a lot of time trying to looking to the past to
find interesting things to include in our convention. So I think we had a pretty
good understanding of what happened at the previous conventions. The problem
always is, how do you plan for those things and how do you make them happen. I
mean, you can review the history, but it's hard to get the nuances of how everything
was prepared for.
Warren: So as it builds up, your responsibilities were enormous.
Donaldson: Yeah.
Warren: How did it break down? There were numerous people, but how did it
break down? Who did what?
Donaldson: Well, we had three chairmen and then we had a number of steering
committee members, and they would include everything from public relations and
those people, and that chairman dealt with people in town and people kind of
getting the word out around campus. We had two media chairmen actually who
dealt, obviously, with setting up and trying to lure in news people from across the
country and then hosting them once they were there.

         We had five regional chairman that were in charge of roughly ten states
apiece in terms of getting funds raised, making sure that the political research was
done correctly and just kind of steering them along the process, somebody who they
were accountable to directly as opposed to just the steering committee. We had a
parade chairman, of course.

         The chairmen, the tri-chairmen, kind of split up. Jamie Tucker, who was the
political chairman, his bailiwick was the prediction itself. Then David and I focused
more on the mechanics of getting this whole thing across the finish line.
Warren: David?

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Donaldson: David Bohigan.
Warren: You said raising funds. What do you mean, raising funds?
Donaldson: Well, I guess the Summers Foundation, and I'm trying to remember
this specifically, I think they pay, or they set up an endowment that produces about
half of what the convention costs, which is about 125,000 or so, which is really a
phenomenal endowment to the university. I mean, it has produced so much in the
years that it's been there. I think it started in 1980. But that builds up for four years
and then they release it during the year of the Mock Convention.

         Then we were handed the task of raising another $125,000, which is what we
estimated the budget to be to pull the thing off. So the fundraising consisted of
primarily solicitations of the alumni, and it was really impressive to see how many
donations came in for that and how strongly alumni felt about their experience. I
think it varies a little bit depending on how old the alums were when they were at
W&L for the Mock Convention. I think people that were seniors generally felt
more strongly about it because they typically were the most involved, whereas
people that came in as freshmen typically don't have as much involvement.
They're involved as delegates, but they haven't seen the process through like
seniors have. But it was amazing how many checks came in from parents and from
outside businesses. I think we did some other solicitation of foundations that I
think had mixed success because we just didn't have time to-
Warren: How big were the big checks?
Donaldson: I think the biggest donation that we had was a $5,000 pledge. I think
that's right, I can't remember. We had several thousand-dollar checks come in.
Warren: From alumni?
Donaldson: Uh-huh. There were a consistent hundred, hundred and fifty, two-fifty
from alumni, which was really something else. There's many different times
throughout the year that they're hit up for W&L contributions, and then the fact

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that they could come through that strong, it's pretty neat. That just goes to show
how much the experience means to a lot of people, which is pretty neat.
Warren: So who solicited the big names? How did you pull that off?
Donaldson: Well, we had a speakers chairman, who I should have mentioned, on
the steering committee, and his sole purpose in life was to recruit speakers to the
Mock Convention.
Warren: Who was that?
Donaldson: That was Ted Elliott, who was a sophomore at the time. Ted's a pretty
interesting character. If you're ever out in San Francisco, he's somebody you want
to call when you're out there. I think we were able to build off of the momentum
from '88 and on years past in attracting speakers partly because of the news coverage.
Politicians generally like that, obviously. We have the luxury of paying the
speakers, as well, which is always an additional enticement.

         We did a lot of networking within the W&L alumni and through parents to
try to find connections to speakers who would be interested in coming, then usually
send a letter and then follow up with a phone call. Then maybe follow it up with an
alum calling or with a personal visit or something like that. We also used the
speakers bureaus, as well, which often greased the wheels of commerce when it
comes to getting speakers. They have a longer standing relationship. We used
some of the same agents who had helped in '88, and so that helps as well in terms of
getting people. But, as always, it's down to the last minute in terms of making sure
that they show up, because a lot of times they'll back out, especially those that aren't
being paid, at a moment's notice.

         I'm trying to remember who we had scheduled. I think it was Jesse Jackson
was going to come and then he canceled like in February, two months beforehand,
which threw us into a complete panic, because at that point there's so much
momentum, that you lose a centerpiece like that and it really can take the wind out

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of your sails. But as it turned out, it was probably the best thing that happened for us
in that convention, because, as a result, we got Mario Cuomo to come. So that really
upped the ante in terms of news coverage and excitement and that kind of thing,
and it was a phenomenal address that he gave as well.
Warren: So Jesse Jackson was supposed to be the keynoter?
Donaldson: Well, I can't remember if we had him slated as the keynoter or not, but
he was one of kind of the big three that we had gotten at the time, and he bailed on
us, as he's wont to do. It was literally six or seven weeks before the convention, and
all the news packets had gone out with his name in it, and it was pretty tense. I'm
trying to remember exactly how it worked with Cuomo. I think we went through
an agent, but then I was sitting in the office and the phone rang, and it was Mario
Cuomo on the telephone saying he wanted to speak to John Nelson [phonetic], and I
just about fell out of my chair. He's a pretty hands-on guy, he wants to know what
the deal is. He wanted to know what the topic was and what kind of environment
he was going to be getting into, and we probably chatted for ten or fifteen minutes.
Warren: So what did you tell him?
Donaldson: Well, I told him about the history of it, and I think that that appealed to
him, and the fact that Truman had been there and his nemesis, Clinton, in '88. But
I tried to explain the fact of what it was that we were doing, that it was a political
exercise and an educational experience and something that we had worked very
hard on, that he would have a very receptive audience, which actually turned out to
be true, which is sometimes difficult to imagine in as conservative a place as W&L
giving Mario Cuomo a standing ovation, but it happened. I think the whole idea of
it he liked. He obviously can be as selective, or could be at the time, as selective as
he wanted to be in terms of taking speaking engagements. I think he could get his
standing fee without too much effort. But then we sent him the Mock Convention

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video and he looked at that, and I think he was really attracted to the idea, and it
turned out great.

         It's funny, he called-actually, one of his henchmen called, and Mario had
looked at the video and had seen the podium from the last convention, which had
Bill Clinton behind it, and said, "No, no, no, we cannot have that podium. I can't be
photographed behind that podium." So one of his lieutenants sent down, in a box,
by Federal Express, the governor's podium, which we used for the whole
convention, which I thought was kind of funny. It probably cost $250 to send it Fed
Ex, but he had to have that podium.

         But even with Cuomo, I mean, talk about last minute, it was eleven o'clock
and there were two thousand people waiting for him to speak at eleven, and it was a
foggy day, probably not unlike today, and you know how it is to fly into Roanoke. If
it gets foggy, it's just a roll of the dice. You don't know where you're going to land
or when. So they had to reroute him from-he was on a charter flight, but they
rerouted him to Lynchburg, and so he was about an hour late and we were totally
nervous that he wasn't going to show at all, which would have been disastrous. We
were getting five-minute updates about where he was, coming along 29 and 81. So
it worked out well, but it was really down to the wire.
Warren: So was everybody there in the gym-
Donaldson: Oh, yeah.
Warren: -getting these reports?
Donaldson: Oh, yeah.
Warren: How did you keep things going?
Donaldson: I would credit-if you get a chance, I know [Bob] de Maria has all the
videotapes. It's was pretty funny. We were just getting up and thanking people. It
was pretty hard. David Bohigan kind of got up there and filled about fifteen
minutes of it just kind of speaking extemporaneously, which I have the ultimate

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admiration for, because it kind of saved the day. But it was a pretty tense morning.
You put so much time and effort into it, and when it comes right down to it, it's up
to fate at the end.
Warren: Was he the only speaker that morning?
Donaldson: I'm trying to remember. I should have brought my program. But I
think that we had an earlier speaker that morning to kind of prime the crowd. But
that morning the keynote speaker speaks and then the voting process begins, which
can take a while. So I think there may have been one other speaker, but we didn't
want to load it up that morning, also because we didn't want to have start too early
because attendance would be weak. But I think he was the only speaker. I can't
remember right now. But we couldn't begin the voting process until we had
somebody speak, and so it held things up a little bit, but nobody seemed to mind.
We were out of there by 2:30 on a Saturday.
Warren: So you mentioned the keynoter in 1988. Had you heard lots of stories
about what happened in '88?
Donaldson: We had. We had. That was a rumor that I heard right when I started, I
mean right when I got involved in '89, the year after he had been there.
Warren: Who is "he"? We're talking posterity here.
Donaldson: Right. When Clinton spoke in '88, there were plenty of rumors about
him playing the saxophone and getting drunk out at Zollman's and running
around with various young ladies. No one was ever able to give first-hand
information or even second-hand information about that. In fact, I think it was
early in the primary season, probably January of '92, there were numerous reporters
that phoned into the W&L news office, and that I talked to as well, trying to get
information about Clinton's visit there in '92.
Warren: In '88.

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Donaldson: I'm sorry, in '88. And they kicked up again the closer it got to the
convention, because it would have been a good story had they had any confirmation
of it. It just has become part of the W&L mythology, which is kind of neat.
Warren: I've actually found a picture of him.
Donaldson: You have?
Warren: Playing his saxophone at Zollman's. It's a terrible snapshot, but I've got a
picture.
Donaldson: Wow, that's pretty neat.
Warren: That's my big find.
Donaldson: Wow, where did you find that?
Warren: In the news office.
Donaldson: Really?
Warren: They didn't realize they had it. It was buried in a file in the news office,
but I knew what I had as soon as I saw it.
Donaldson: That's great. There's got to be some folks with those out there, as well.
That would make a nice contribution to the-
Warren: Well, it's a really lousy snapshot.
Donaldson: You need to find a good one, if you can.
Warren: It's a challenge.
Donaldson: You look at the class of '88. I keep in touch occasionally with one of the
former chairmen from '88 and I'll have to ask him if he knows anything about that.
Warren: That would be great. That would be great.

         Well, when you were chatting with Cuomo, did you tell him that he had to
bring a saxophone, at least?
Donaldson: No, Mario-
Warren: You should have told him he needed to come in a night early.

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Donaldson: Yeah. He was in and out. I mean, I don't think he was in Virginia for
more than probably six hours total. He does his own thing. I don't think he takes
orders from too many people, so I certainly wasn't going to even ask him to do
more than what he had contracted to do.
Warren: Who were your other speakers?
Donaldson: Tip O'Neill and Michael Dukakis and Larry Fromm-Al Fromm, who
is one of Clinton's Democratic Leadership Council friends. He was the one I think
who helped Clinton move to the middle in '92. Who else was there? Brian Shaw,
of course, then Councilman Shaw. I think those are the big ones.
Warren: He'll love that. So did any of these big-name people interact with the
students?
Donaldson: I'm trying to remember how that worked. Yeah, both Dukakis and Tip
O'Neill had come in early on Friday and had dinner with the steering committee
and their families, then I think they had sort of a post-reception for them, as well.

        My father tells an interesting story about the next morning. He stayed at the
McCampbell Inn, and he went down to have breakfast, and there was Roger Mudd
and Michael Dukakis and Tip O'Neill all having brunch. So my dad just sat down
and joined them and had this really interesting conversation with these three
national figures in Lexington, Virginia.

        But they were very nice, took a lot of questions afterwards from students and
student reporters, as well. Tip O'Neill's speech was kind of neat. I think he died
within a year or two of that speech, probably a year. They welcomed him with the
"Cheers" theme song to get him on stage, and Dukakis with "Coming To America,"
which was probably my favorite part of the whole-well, one of my favorite parts.
The speakers chairman gave this very rousing introduction and then the music
came on, Neil Diamond, "Coming to America," which is just the height of
schmaltz, and then Dukakis came on stage and the place went nuts. It was Friday

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night, so people obviously had proper preparation for the evening. It was pretty
neat. It was just kind of a nice cap to a very, very long day.
Warren: You mentioned earlier that Washington and Lee is a conservative place.
How much play-acting is going on and how much do people really get caught up in
the spirit of the thing?
Donaldson: Well, I think they run together. I think that the spirit of it, you know,
people get excited about it. I think that the vast majority of students in 1992 would
have voted, or probably did vote, for George Bush if they voted. There is some
mock excitement for Democratic causes and leaders, but for the event itself, I think,
the enthusiasm was genuine. I was there in '92 and '96, I saw it. I think that people
were more sincere perhaps in their enthusiasm for the content of speakers' speeches
in '96, because I think that was more closely aligned with their own political views.

         But I think part of it, and I don't know that this is true every year when there
are Democratic conventions, but I think that the speeches were really pretty
exceptional, Cuomo's especially, in '92. So it's very difficult to listen to a speaker
like that and not get excited about the rhetoric, whether you disagree or not with the
underlying substance. When you're there with an emotional speaker, it's hard not
to get excited. In the same way, I think the research that the students did may have
been more objective because they were not as swayed by underlying political
motivations when they were. That's a gross generalization, but I think, overall,
people were able to be a little bit more objective since a lot of the votes were going to
go to the Republicans anyway and reviewing who the Democrats would select.
Warren: That's an interesting point.
Donaldson: They didn't get as caught up emotionally in the candidates, perhaps,
although Clinton was a seemingly moderate Southern Democrat. He'd been to
W&L before. So I think that of the bunch in '92 that the students were probably-he
would have been the odds-on favorite just if you'd taken a poll subjectively and not

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looked at what the states themselves would have done. If you just asked the
students they would vote for among the Democrats, I think it would have been a
knockout for Clinton. That was kind of neat. That was kind of interesting.
Warren: The article I read in the alumni magazine said that you all were thrown
into a tizzy because there was some kind of rumor like the night before the voting
or something, there was some rumor that some rumor was going to come out.
Donaldson: Oh, we had been in touch with some political journalists who
intimated, at least, that there was some real substantive proof to, I guess as the press
called it, another "bimbo eruption" in the Clinton campaign that might have been
even more damaging than the Jennifer Flowers episode. I don't remember what the
details of this alleged rumor were, but I remember it did kind of throw people off,
because I think at that time, barring-no, I take that back. Clinton was just
beginning to emerge as the frontrunner at the time. I mean, it was the germination
stage of his eventual victory. There was still a lot of uncertainty about Clinton and
the character issues and about what might come up in the following six or eight
months. So it was an authentic prediction, and I think that differs from many years
past. I think '88 was following Super Tuesday, so a lot of the votes had been cast, the
momentum was behind "the Duke" at that point.

         In previous years, partly to make sure that there was good weather for the
parade, the convention had been almost in May, and by that time it was getting to be
almost a done deal for the primary season. We moved it back in '92. They moved it
back a little bit further even in '96, and I think that adds a lot of legitimacy to what
the exercise is.
Warren: What determines the timing?
Donaldson: That is a very difficult process, as you can probably imagine, with as
many different events and organizations that there are on campus. We made the
decision on the timing based on the very first agenda that we got from the

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Democratic National Committee about the scheduling of primaries. As soon as we
got that, which I think was probably maybe a year before the convention itself, we
went ahead and had, I don't even know if it's even around, the University Calendar
Committee had a meeting and then we set Mock Convention, we set Fancy Dress,
and I forget what else there was that had to be accommodated at that point. But we
tried to get that on the calendar first, and I think that the university is pretty
supportive about making all the necessary effort to get that on a weekend that works
best for the convention.
Warren: Well, I think that timing is critical. It certainly was this year.
Donaldson: Yes.
Warren: A week later it wouldn't have made any difference.
Donaldson: Right, exactly. It goes towards making it interesting both for the
students as a predictive exercise and a learning exercise, and interesting for the
media, because otherwise they don't have any interest in seeing or confirming the
obvious. If it's timed properly, as it was in '92 and '96, it makes for a great side story.
When the country gets wrapped up in politics, it's just a perfect special-interest
story. So there's a lot of value in doing that. It's nice to have some external
confirmation of what you're doing, and the Mock Convention now has gotten such
a track record that it's a very appealing news story for a lot of organizations. If you
time it wrong, it's not that interesting, and that's one of the strengths of getting it in
early and getting it while the country's mood is involved.

         Because if you remember even in '96, three weeks after the convention,
[Robert] Dole was-one week after the convention in '96, Dole was the walk-away
frontrunner, but the news coverage just about evaporated. But at the time, when it
was right, it was the same day as the South Carolina primary, just before Super
Tuesday, it was the news.
Warren: It was thrilling.

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Donaldson: Yeah, it was a pretty neat experience. I had a great time in '96.
Warren: Well, tell me about that. Tell me about going back. What was it like to go
back and not be on the podium?
Donaldson: It was a neat experience. It was nice to not have that responsibility and
kind of get to enjoy it as everybody else did four years prior. They did a great job. I
had been in touch with one of the chairmen throughout, and he made great
accommodation for us to be involved in all of it. It was fun. It was a lot of fun. It
wasn't as weird as I thought it was going to be. I didn't know exactly what to expect,
and it was really a very fun weekend. We had a nice weekend. All the other
chairmen came back. I'm trying to think what else. It was neat to see it from the
Republican side as well. People were pretty enthusiastic.

         One other thing I should tell you, the Mock Convention did produce at least
one marriage. The treasurer and the secretary got married, Elise Bryan and Jay
Darden. They had worked for two years on it each, and then they got married about
two years ago, three years ago now. It was kind of funny. We used to laugh about it
at the time, and sure enough, they got hitched.
Warren: Not a mock marriage?
Donaldson: No. No, no, hopefully not. Hopefully not. '96 was fun. They did a
really good job.
Warren: I need to flip the tape over.