JACKSON — I watched with interest recently when the U.S. Senate Democratic Caucus reluctantly put aside its anger over Joseph Lieberman’s defection to campaign for Republican John McCain against President-elect Barack Obama. The Senate Democrats let Lieberman keep his committee chairmanship, a far different outcome than the punishment dealt to a Mississippi Democratic congressman who defected 44 years ago.
Despite a number of negative votes, the caucus voted to let the Connecticut senator continue to head the Homeland Security Committee but not its top subcommittee.
Back in the 1964 presidential race, Mississippi Rep. John Bell Williams, an outspoken segregationist, openly supported Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona against President Lyndon B. Johnson, who won in a landslide.
The House Democratic Caucus not only stripped Williams of his committee chairmanship, they wiped out his party seniority. (I wrote back then they left Williams little more than his zip code.)
What did Williams do then? Rather than switch to the Republican Party, he resigned from his House seat and announced he was coming back to Mississippi to run for governor in the 1967 Democratic primary.
Typical of Old Confederacy defiance, Mississippians viewed Williams as a martyr who was wronged by the National Democratic Party and proceeded to give him the Democratic nomination and then elect him governor.
Of note, Williams’ opponent in a bitter runoff for the Democratic nomination was William Winter in what is regarded as Mississippi’s last openly racist gubernatorial election.
One of the most hilarious scenes ever in Mississippi politics came during the primary campaign: a clanking episode between two segregationist warhorses, Williams and former Gov. Ross Barnett, over the “tapes.” Everyone back then knew the “tapes” meant the recorded conversations between Barnett and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and his brother, President John F. Kennedy, preceding the Ole Miss crisis over the admission of James Meredith.
In a finger-shaking, vilification-tossing clash — poetically, at a White Citizens’ Council forum — Williams discombobulated Barnett when he asked the former governor about “deals and underhanded agreements” he made with the Kennedys over admitting Meredith as the university’s black student.
Barnett told Williams: “bring out your tape, if you’ve got one, bring it out and play it.” Mind you, nothing had been said at that point about the Barnett-Kennedy tapes. So this was actually Barnett’s first admission they existed.
Barnett then revealed something else not previously known — that he had wired all members of the Mississippi congressional delegation to “come stand with me” at the university to block Meredith’s entry. He charged he had not heard from Williams, to which Williams heatedly fired back that Barnett was “a liar” because he had phoned the governor to say he was the only member of the delegation willing to come.
The Williams governorship became one of the surliest terms the state has ever experienced, ending with a special session of the state Senate called by Williams near the end of his four-year term to confirm some appointees. The Senate snubbed Williams by quickly adjourning without taking any action. As governor, Williams was more interested in shaking his fist at the National Democratic Party and the federal government in general than implementing programs to relieve the entrenched poverty in his home state.
He constantly threw up barriers against federal anti-poverty and Head Start programs instituted by LBJ’s “War on Poverty.” What bothered me most was his refusal to appoint blacks to county draft boards despite the fact that African-American soldiers were being drafted by the hundreds to fight — and die — in Vietnam.
Williams’ best time came after Hurricane Camille hit the Gulf Coast in August 1969, and he spent three solid weeks on the Coast to oversee recovery efforts, sleeping in a rugged barracks at the old Gulfport air base. No bundle of federal recovery money came down from Congress back then as after Katrina. However, after his heroic post-Camille stand, Williams virtually disappeared from public view.
