Notes

My path to writing this biography began with a November 2006 Texas Monthly essay on her passing, “Ann: An Appreciation.” That led to another essay, “The Case for Ann Richards,” in the anthology A Legacy of Leadership: Governors in American History, edited by Clayton McClure Brooks (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 2008).

Much as I admired Ann and was indebted to her in my personal and professional life, I would never have attempted to write this book if I had not, in researching the second essay, discovered the wealth of materials and knowledge in the Ann W. Richards Papers in the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas in Austin (hereafter cited as Richards Papers). The index alone runs to 700 single-spaced pages. Early on, I saw that important sections bore a proviso that authorization by the governor would be required. Since she had passed away two years earlier, I asked the lead archivist, Evan Hocker, what that now meant. A day or two later, he reported happily that only capital punishment and personnel files remained confidential and closed. She had stipulated that a year and a half after her death, she wanted scholars and interested citizens to have access to whatever they might find and learn. That transparency is very rare among politicians today. My job was to be thorough and fair.

David Richards and his children, Cecile, Dan, Clark, and Ellen, contributed to this undertaking from the outset. We had no formal agreement that it would be an “authorized biography”; they just trusted me to do my best to tell Ann’s story right. Bud Shrake’s sons, Ben and Alan Shrake; the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University in San Marcos; and the archivist Joel Minor contributed correspondence and an insightful interview of Bud by Brant Bingamon. Bud fell ill before we had the long conversations about the book that we planned, and I did not want to intrude on the medical difficulty that he fended off with bravery and creativity in his last months. But in the course of our friendship, he had already told me a great deal.

My wife, Dorothy Browne, was a friend of Ann and David Richards before she became a senior aide of Ann for almost a decade. She was also my knowing critic here. Her administrative assistant in the Governor’s Office, Shawn Morris, in turn was my helpful research assistant. So I knew many of Ann’s associates before I began. Still, I was startled by the response of professional colleagues who made generous time for interviews. The same was true of her political advisers. In addition to the archival work, I conducted over one hundred interviews over a three-year period.

Some important figures, such as Jane Hickie, politely declined to be interviewed. Ann’s speechwriter Suzanne Coleman did not respond to my calls and e-mails about the book. She had been our good friend since Dorothy went to work at the Treasury, and I knew that in addition to her work and whatever she felt in retrospect about her long creative partnership with Ann, she had a loved one to care for, and I did not want to intrude on their privacy. For one reason or another, there were a few others whom I did not get to interview, but their roles and words were abundantly documented in the archives.

Ann Richards’s memoir Straight from the Heart: My Life in Politics and Other Places, written with Peter Knobler (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), and David Richards’s Once Upon a Time in Texas: A Liberal in the Lone Star State (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 2002) are secondary sources, but read together, I found they became something more than that, for they offer different perspectives, sometimes disagreements, on many experiences that were richly shared.

Other books I consulted were Land of the Permanent Wave: An Edwin “Bud” Shrake Reader, edited by Steven L. Davis (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 2008), and Davis’s Texas Literary Outlaws: Six Writers in the Sixties and Beyond (Fort Worth: TCU Press, 2004); Gary Cartwright’s HeartWiseGuy: How to Live the Good Life after a Heart Attack (New York: St. Martin’s, 1998) and Turn Out the Lights: Chronicles of Texas during the 80s and 90s (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 2000); and Molly Ivins’s Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She? (New York: Random House, 1991) and Who Let the Dogs In? Incredible Political Animals I Have Known (New York: Random House, 2004).

On politics and government, I learned much from Bob Bullock: God Bless Texas, by Dave McNeely and Jim Henderson (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 2008); Brian McCall’s The Power of the Texas Governor: Connally to Bush (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 2009); From Bloodshed to Hope in Burundi, by Robert Krueger and Kathleen Tobin Krueger (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 2009); George W. Bush’s Decision Points (New York: Broadway, 2011); Robert Draper’s Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush (New York: Free Press, 2008); Mike Cochran’s Claytie: The Roller-Coaster Life of a Texas Wildcatter (College Station: Texas A&M Univ. Press, 2007); Karen Hughes’s Ten Minutes from Normal (New York: Viking, 2004); Wayne Slater and James Moore’s Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential (New York: Wiley, 2003); and Karl Rove, Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight (New York: Threshold Editions, 2010).

To refresh my memory and double-check sources, I also revisited Beaches, Bureaucrats, and Big Oil by Garry Mauro (Austin: Look Away, 1997), a book that I helped edit, and Boy Genius: Karl Rove, the Brains Behind the Remarkable Political Triumph of George W. Bush (New York: Public Affairs, 2003), on which I collaborated with Lou Dubose, Carl M. Cannon, and, in an important unsigned chapter, John Ratliff.

Prologue: Glimpses. I first described the “gonzo bridge” party in Austin where I met Ann Richards in the previously mentioned Texas Monthly essay “Ann.” For the intervention, see Straight from The Heart, 202–212. I conducted interviews with David Richards and Dan Richards, and Michael and Sue Sharlot, who took part in the intervention.

For Ann’s work for Sarah Weddington, see Straight from the Heart, 137–145, and for the keynote address, the same book, 11–32. In interviews, Mary Beth Rogers and Bill Cryer described the pressured speechwriting sessions in Atlanta. Dan Richards told me about watching his mother deliver the speech from the stage wings. The Dallas Morning News’s Wayne Slater recalled her remark to him on finishing the speech in a KLRU-TV interview by Paul Stekler. The faxed letter of congratulation from Bud Shrake is in the Richards Papers. Copies of the exchanged notes between Ann and President George H. W. Bush are there as well. The summary of her accomplishments and shortcomings is mine alone.

Chapter 1: Waco. Ann Richards’s Waco High School yearbooks, mementos, and photographs are in her personal effects in the Richards Papers. David Richards spoke of her father, mother, and uncle in conversations with the author. For the effect on Texas of the Civil War and Reconstruction, see T. R. Fehrenbach, Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans (New York: MacMillan, 1968), 393–432. The postwar constitutions are described thoroughly and well in The Handbook of Texas Online, published in multiple editions by the Texas State Historical Association, Austin. The Handbook also relates the story of William Cowper Brann, “the Iconoclast.” The colorful tale of the invention of the soft drink Dr Pepper is related in papers and articles at the Dr Pepper Museum in Waco, as well as on the museum’s website.

For Ann’s descriptions of her parents’ origins, her birth, her childhood in Lakeview, her adolescent years in San Diego, and her move to Waco, see Straight from the Heart, 33–57. David Richards described his parents’ arrival in Waco in several conversations with the author. He confirmed and added to the story of his father’s participation in the navy in both world wars and his coaching career at Clemson University, which I had gleaned from histories of that school’s athletic programs; he likewise confirmed his mother’s indignation at the provincialism of Waco and Baylor University. Ann reminisced about her high school romance with David and her introduction to the sophistication of his family in Straight from the Heart, 69–81. On the fascination that the story of Robin Hood held for David and Ann, see Straight from the Heart, 74, and Once Upon a Time, 7. In conversations with the author, David described the nights of dancing and music on Waco’s segregated black east side.

For their brief drifting apart and Ann’s conversion in response to a sermon by Billy Graham, see Straight from the Heart, 74–78, and Once Upon a Time, 8–9. Their involvement in the Young Democrats’ liberal politics is recounted in Straight from the Heart, 83–88, and Once Upon a Time, 8–13. Ann’s year of teaching history in junior high and her return to Waco to give birth to their first child, Cecile, is recounted in Straight from the Heart, 89–91, and in David’s conversations with the author.

Chapter 2: New Frontiers. Ann’s isolation as a young mother in Dallas, David’s bewildering plunge into labor law, and the oppressive atmosphere of Dallas in the 1950s are conveyed in Once Upon a Time, 16–19, and Straight from the Heart, 90–97. I learned more about the Dallas years in conversations and interviews with David, Cecile, and Dan Richards and Gary Cartwright. For the effects of the 1960 presidential election on Texas, see The Handbook of Texas Online. For the experience of Ann and David in Washington, see Straight from the Heart, 96–110, and Once Upon a Time, 20–26. Both books describe the effects on them of LBJ’s tirade at a private party.

Chapter 3: Lovers Lane. In Once Upon a Time, 16–21, and in several conversations with the author, David Richards related his high regard for labor union members as leaders of the progressive political movement. For the race to fill Lyndon Johnson’s Senate seat in 1961 and the election of John Connally as governor, see The Handbook of Texas Online. For Ann’s involvement in the North Dallas Democratic Women, see Straight from the Heart, 110–118. Interviews by Ruthe Winegarten are archived in the Richards Papers. Numerous copies of the irreverent Christmas cards of Ann Richards and Betty McKool are there also. The summary of the cashiering of General Edwin Walker and his near assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald is drawn from Dallas newspaper accounts and the report of the Warren Commission. David Richards described the near mob scene at a Dallas appearance by U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson in Once Upon a Time, 32, and in conversations with the author. David told me about his alarm at seeing the motorcade of President John F. Kennedy with so little apparent security. Ann wrote about waiting at the luncheon where Kennedy was scheduled to speak and then the mass fright in Straight from the Heart, 120–122. Cecile Richards told me about hearing the news that the president was dead over an intercom at a school where older students cheered. David recalled the chaotic aftermath of the assassination, his desperation to have his family all together, and the shock of Jack Ruby’s murder of Lee Harvey Oswald on live television in Once Upon a Time, 33–34. Lynn Whitten told me about the families’ frigid escape to a camping ground north of Dallas.

For the troubled pregnancy and two grand mal seizures Ann suffered, see Straight from the Heart, 123–125. They were described in more detail in conversations with David Richards and Lynn Whitten, whose mother, Virginia, was in the car Ann was driving during one of those episodes. Ann’s diagnosis of epilepsy followed her in medical records, and her prescribed use of the drug Dilantin is confirmed in the Richards Papers. In interviews, Cecile Richards and Lynn Whitten relayed memories of the elaborate parties for children and their mothers’ political engagement in boycotts of nonunion produce. David told me about their friendship with Stan Alexander, a North Texas State University professor of English and sponsor of a storied folk music club in Denton, and the night Alexander brought to a Lovers Lane party Eddie Wilson, who later was a figure of great importance in Austin’s burgeoning music scene and remained a close friend of both Ann and David. David told me about his brief term as a Democratic precinct chairman and his friendship with Shel Hershorn, a neighbor and noted freelance photographer whose papers and images are in the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. I learned more about Ann’s talent and vaudeville-style showmanship in an interview with, and images taken by, the photographer Tad Hershorn.

In correspondence archived in the Richards Papers and through my conversations with David, I learned details of their early friendship in Dallas with Bud Shrake and Gary “Jap” Cartwright. I learned about Bud Shrake’s early life from conversations with Gary Cartwright and in compiling Bud’s obituary in the Austin American-Statesman. For the madcap gymnastic act the Flying Punzars, see Cartwright’s HeartWiseGuy, 25–26, and for their frequent encounters with Jack Ruby and Shrake’s affair with one of Ruby’s strippers, see HeartWiseGuy, 16–20. David recounted John Connally’s urging of his ouster as a Democratic precinct chairman in Once Upon a Time, 35, and in conversations with the author. I learned about the many whitewater expeditions and campouts in conversations with David, Dorothy Browne, Sue Sharlot, and in Once Upon a Time, 188–195, and Straight from the Heart, 126–129. For David’s brief employment by Senator Ralph Yarborough, see Once Upon a Time, 56–58.

For the Dallas Notes lawsuit and Supreme Court argument, see Once Upon a Time, 65–73, and Straight from the Heart, 136–137. For the farmworkers’ march to Austin, see Once Upon a Time, 48–49.

Chapter 4: Mad Dogs and First Fridays. For the Richardses’ move to Austin and early months there, see Straight from the Heart, 134–137, and Once Upon a Time, 77–84. David, Cecile, Dan, and Clark Richards, and Eddie Wilson, told me about their arrival in West Lake Hills. Cecile, Dan, and Clark told me in detail about their parents’ changes in lifestyle in liberal Austin. Lynn Whitten told me about the roaring arguments that their fathers would engage in for sport. David remembered the march to protest the Kent State killings in 1970 as a pivotal moment in the politics of Austin. For the Richardses’ involvement in First Fridays, Mad Dog, Inc., and the Armadillo World Headquarters, see Straight from the Heart, 196–201, and Once Upon a Time, 173–187. Conversations with David, Eddie Wilson, and Gary Cartwright added more details about this period. Also see Steven L. Davis, Texas Literary Outlaws, 228–238, and his Land of the Permanent Wave, 175–185.

The columns of New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal about Ann and the parties on Red Bud Trail are in the Richards Papers; also see Once Upon a Time, 77. In many conversations, David, Gary Cartwright, Doatsy Shrake, and Mike and Sue Sharlot shared memories of their lives in Austin in the early 1970s. Cecile, Dan, and Clark Richards added their perspectives in interviews. David, Cartwright, and Doatsy Shrake recounted the night when the Flying Punzars showed up on the Richardses’ deck hours past midnight, voicing hopes that Ann’s Santa Claus costume from an earlier party would enable them to obtain prescription drugs from a pharmacist at that hour.

Members of the Richards family, Gary Cartwright, Sue Sharlot, and other friends told me about her alcoholism and affection for marijuana in the 1970s. A conversation with David led me to the literature of the National Center for Biotechnological Information and stark accounts of the side effects of Dilantin; see also Once Upon a Time, 215–216.

Chapter 5: The Hanukkah Chicken. Ann’s accounts of the canoeing armadas in the canyons of the Rio Grande and the campout at Sam Rayburn Lake are in Straight from the Heart and in the Richards Papers. David, Gary Cartwright, and Sue Sharlot added details about these episodes in our conversations. I attended the wedding of Gary and Phyllis Cartwright in the back room of an Austin bar called the Texas Chili Parlor. During this time, I came to know Bud Shrake and his wife Doatsy. For Ann’s battles with the schools of West Lake Hills, see Straight from the Heart, 147–151. In interviews, Cecile, Dan, and Clark Richards described their experience in those public schools and at the private St. Stephen’s Academy. Dan told me about a comic performance that Ann, Molly Ivins, and Maury Maverick, Jr., staged around the Richardses’ swimming pool, reading from transcripts of the Watergate hearings. Sue Sharlot told me about what a beautiful and generous person Ann was in those wild days. Ann’s collected letters concerning her family’s trip to England and France in 1973 are in the Richards Papers.

Chapter 6: Problem Lady. For the institutional contempt that Ann felt for the Democratic Party because of its treatment of women, see Straight from the Heart, 111–112 and 136. Garry Mauro told me about how his friendship with Bill and Hillary Clinton began when they were campaign workers for George McGovern in 1972. Don Roth, who taught history at St. Stephen’s, told me about Ann guiding him in his role as their Democratic precinct chairman in the camp of McGovern. See The Handbook of Texas Online for a summary of the Sharpstown scandal of 1972. For Ann’s experience as Sarah Weddington’s campaign manager, see Straight from the Heart, 137–145. The chastening and telling letter from Maury Maverick, Jr., concerning his support of that year’s lieutenant-governor candidate, Bill Hobby, is in the Richards Papers.

In recounting the history of birth control in the United States, I relied on multiple online accounts of the lives and careers of Margaret Sanger, the physiologist Gregory Pincus, the gynecologist John Rock, and the Polish émigré and inventor Carl Djerassi. Particularly useful as an overview is David Allyn, Make Love, Not War: The Sexual Revolution: An Unfettered History (Boston: Little, Brown, 2000). The landmark legal cases are examined in History Blog: Scholarship News and New Ideas in Legal History (www.legalhistoryblogspot.com). Though the subtitle incorrectly slights the role of Linda Coffee, Sarah Weddington’s memoir of the legal battle is balanced and incisive: A Question of Choice: By the Lawyer Who Won “Roe v. Wade” (New York: Penguin, 1993). For Cecile Richards’s stature as an adult, see Jill Lepore’s “Birthright: What’s Next for Planned Parenthood?” in the New Yorker, November 14, 2011.

In an interview, Richard Moya told me how Ann and Claire Korioth raised money for his race for the Travis County Commissioners’ Court and the legislative race of Gonzalo Barrientos. For Ann’s description of her experience when asked to serve as Weddington’s legislative chief of staff, see Straight from the Heart, 144–145. Doug Zabel granted me access to the priceless correspondence he carried on with Ann when they were legislative aides.

Chapter 7: Landslides. For Ann’s recruitment to run as a Travis County commissioner and the campaign, see Straight from the Heart, 152–161, and Once Upon a Time, 151–153. In conversations, Gary Cartwright and Carlton Carl contributed their perspectives about that race. The how-to workbook published by the National Women’s Education Fund is in the Richards Papers. For how David’s federal court-shopping and Bob Bullock’s testimony enabled the student voting that helped Ann’s campaign, see Once Upon a Time, 154–160, and Dave McNeely and Jim Henderson, Bob Bullock, 68–69. Clark Richards told me about the last day of his mother’s winning campaign. Ann’s note of thanks to Bud Shrake for a contribution is in the Richards Papers.

For Ann’s story about the resentful road crew and how she broke the ice by asking about their ugly dog, see Straight from the Heart, 163–165. Jan Jarboe Russell wrote about Ann’s change in apparel and style on being elected commissioner in “Ann’s Plans,” Texas Monthly, July 1992. Jane Hickie’s descriptions of the early days of working for Ann at the county are in the Richards Papers. Gary Cartwright wrote about the pitched battle between Austin developers and environmentalists in “High Noon at the Circle C,” Texas Monthly, May 1984. The most reliable information on the construction of the Percy Pennybacker Bridge on Austin’s Loop 360 is found in the archives of the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration. The bridge won the Excellence in Highway Design award in the first year of competition. Evelyn Wanda Jackson’s work with Ann on the bridge project was noted in her Austin American-Statesman obituary in December 2011.

Chapter 8: Raw Deals. In an interview, Mary Beth Rogers told me about the National Women’s Conference. For Ann’s perspective on that conference, her enlistment in President Jimmy Carter’s Advisory Committee for Women, and her unpleasant experience with Carter over the Equal Rights Amendment, see Straight from the Heart, 174–185. A concise and valuable chronology of the history of the ERA is on the National Organization for Women’s website (www.now.org/issues/economic/cea/history.html).

David and other sources told me about Ann’s affection for marijuana. David told me about the Chattooga River expedition and his growing alarm about Ann’s drinking; also see Once Upon a Time, 215–216. Ann’s letter to Bud Shrake about David’s possible appointment to a federal appeals court is in the Shrake Papers, the Wittliff Collections. For the Richardses’ reflections on their troubled marriage, see Straight from the Heart, 183–184, and Once Upon a Time, 213–216. Documents related to the Women in Texas History project and her correspondence at the commissioners’ court are in the Richards Papers. The elaborate profile “Ann Richards: Laughing All the Way to the Bank: A Personal Account” was written by Roberta Starr for Third Coast, February 1984.

McNeely and Henderson’s Bob Bullock is a well-researched biography and good portrayal of the mercurial career and personality of the comptroller and lieutenant governor. I also learned much about him from his former aides Chuck Bailey and John P. Moore and from stories relayed by David Richards. For the Richardses’ very different experiences with Frank Erwin, see Once Upon a Time, 125–136, and Straight from the Heart, 202.

Chapter 9: Capsized. Dan Richards told me about Jane Hickie’s insistence that Ann’s drinking had reached a point requiring intervention, and Sue and Mike Sharlot added their perspectives. The Sharlots and David Richards allowed me to read painful narratives that participants in the intervention had to compose and read aloud to her; also see Straight from the Heart, 203–211. Sue Sharlot shared Ann’s fearful letter from Minnesota. Clark Richards told me that the “Family Week” at the hospital was torturous for him, as well. Dave McNeely, a participant, told me about the Richardses’ last canoeing expedition through canyons of the Rio Grande. Ann’s unsparing notes about her alcoholism for a speech are in the Richards Papers. Clark Richards told me about his then-troubled relationship with his mother and the “rage attacks” when she was drunk and he was a child.

Chapter 10: The Class of ’82. I learned a great deal about the Democrats’ surprising sweep of the elections in 1982 while working for land commissioner Garry Mauro. For a summary of George W. Bush’s losing congressional race to Kent Hance, see Dubose, Reid, and Cannon, Boy Genius, 14–17. Bill Cryer, who worked in Bill Clements’s campaign with Karl Rove, conveyed the shock of the GOP on losing every statewide office. For Bob Bullock’s conduct as secretary of state and comptroller, and his eventual enrollment in “Drunk School,” see McNeely and Henderson, Bob Bullock, 134–149. For the call from Bob Armstrong urging Ann Richards to run for treasurer and the ensuing scramble, see Straight from the Heart, 213–217. Dan Richards told me about his experience as her travel aide in that campaign. In the Richards Papers, campaign documents and in-house interviews of Jane Hickie at the Treasury describe the campaign and the surreal transition to the agency and office held by Warren G. Harding. A memo from Hickie detailing the financial contributions that enabled Ann’s first statewide race is in the Richards Papers. The colorful history of the Treasury, including its eventual demise, is told in The Handbook of Texas Online.

Chapter 11: Raise Money and Wait. Nadine Eckhardt shared her correspondence with Ann about projections of her long-range political future. Ann’s letter to Gary Cartwright is in the Richards Papers. A Dallas Morning News story related Ann’s performance at a Dallas fund-raiser for Congressman Jim Mattox. Several staffers at the attorney general’s office told me about David Richards’s role when Mattox was fending off an indictment for commercial bribery; also see Once Upon a Time, 227–241. Bill Cryer’s memo about Ann’s prospects for higher office is in the Richards Papers. Ann’s moving eulogy of Sam Whitten is in the Richards Papers.

Chapter 12: Cheap Help. Mary Beth Rogers told me about the extent of the staff’s ignorance of finance when Ann won the election. Jane Hickie was the force behind in-house interviews conducted by both Lynn Whitten, a graduate student and intern at the Treasury, and the historian Ruthe Winegarten. Third Coast published several articles about Ann—in one, she shrugged off being known as an Austin liberal and professed to be serene about her separation and pending divorce from David. But Rogers told me about the weeping, screaming outburst in their adjoining offices when Ann learned David had filed the papers, which were withdrawn that time.

Interviews by the Houston Chronicle’s Barbara Karkabi and Ruthe Winegarten are in the Richards Papers. One interview, conducted by Winegarten as Ann was preparing to move out of her house on Red Bud Trail, relates her wariness toward the press, her exasperation with Walter Mondale and other Democratic presidential contenders in 1984, and her dismissal of press suggestions that she might be a vice presidential nominee that year. The letter that Ann wrote to her divorce lawyer is in the Richards Papers.

Chapter 13: Poker Faces. For Governor Mark White’s explanation of his loss in the 1986 rematch with Bill Clements, see Brian McCall, The Power of the Texas Governor, 81–83. Dave McNeely, then a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman, told me about Clements’s embarrassing involvement in the SMU football scandal. Having started writing speeches for Garry Mauro, I gained an unexpected outlook on the practices of the FBI and the fear that investigation struck even in the heart of Bob Bullock; I contributed these conversations and impressions to Boy Genuis, 38–41. Mary Beth Rogers and Bill Cryer shared their differing views of Ann’s plans for the election of 1990. Steve Hall told me the story and shared his diary entry of the day Jim Mattox had reason to believe he had bluffed Bill Hobby out of the governor’s race. Bob Bullock’s friendly note of advice to Ann is in the Richards Papers.

Chapter 14: The Speech. Ann’s correspondence with Bud Shrake about her periodontal surgery and his growing fondness for her is in the Richards Papers. Bill Cryer told me about the call from Ann that she had been invited to deliver the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 1988; also see Straight from the Heart, 11–32. Cryer and Mary Beth Rogers told me about the marathon speech-writing sessions in Atlanta. The shifting drafts of the speech, the encouraging notes from Bud Shrake, the critique of the speech and recommendations on delivery by Kirk Adams, the rave in the New Yorker, Erma Bombeck’s column, Patricia Kilday Hart’s Texas Monthly story about Ann’s heightened gubernatorial prospects, Adam Perlman’s Boston Globe profile of Donna Alexander, and Ann’s letter to Shrake at the end of the Dukakis campaign are all in the Richards Papers.

Chapter 15: Dispatches. Doatsy Shrake told me about the end of her marriage to Bud. For details of Shrake’s near-fatal health breakdown and the necessity of ending his alcohol and drug abuse, see Davis, Land of the Permanent Wave, 258–259. More revealing is the interview that Shrake granted Brant Bingamon and his direction to a passage in his novel Custer’s Brother’s Horse, 259–260. Ann and Bud’s lively correspondence, Ann’s speech at the roast of Bum Phillips, Suzanne Coleman’s unsigned memo when she feared Ann was losing heart for what lay ahead, and the vicious anonymous letter to Baptist ministers and newspaper editors are in the Richards Papers. George Shipley told me about Ann’s meeting with Henry Cisneros before she decided to run for governor.

Chapter 16: Backyard Brawl. Her campaign manager, Glenn Smith, contributed an extensive and insightful interview concerning the 1990 Democratic primary. Monte Williams, Dorothy Browne, and I took part in the boat trip that launched Ann’s campaign for governor. The correspondence between Ann and Bud Shrake, Ellen Richards’s letter to a disenchanted supporter, and Mark McKinnon’s memo on capital punishment are in the Richards Papers.

Chapter 17: Answer the Question. In interviews, Glenn Smith, Dan Richards, Mary Beth Rogers, and Chris Hughes offered perspectives on the brutal turn in the 1990 campaign. Jane Hickie’s proprietary claim and Mark White’s protest about the controversial television ad about pockets being lined are in McCall, The Power of the Texas Governor, 96. Newspaper clippings about the race’s outcome are in the Richards Papers. For David Richards’s retrospective on Mattox, “Junkyard Jim,” see the Texas Observer, December 12, 2009.

Chapter 18: Bustin’ Rocks. Clayton Williams offered the biographical sketch in announcing his campaign. For information on his family, see Handbook of Texas Online. Gary Cartwright’s article on his ranching success, “The Last Roundup,” appeared in Texas Monthly, July 1986. Extensive newspaper clippings about his GOP primary race and gaffes in the general election are in the Richards Papers. Jan Jarboe’s campaign profile, “Clayton Williams: Onward to the Past,” was published in Texas Monthly, October 1990. Sources for the passages about Kay Bailey Hutchison and Rick Perry are their official websites and the extensive collection of newspaper clippings in the Richards Papers. George W. Bush’s fund-raising letter in behalf of Williams is in the Richards Papers.

Chapter 19: The Rodeo. Continued correspondence with Bud Shrake that lifted Ann’s spirits in the long-shot comeback is in the Richards Papers. In interviews, Glenn Smith, Mary Beth Rogers, and George Shipley described the transition of campaign managers, opposition research into Williams’s business record, and the “fraudulent honking goose” episode. Ann’s recollections about being inspired by the old woman in La Joya, news stories and correspondence related to the downfall of Jim Hightower, and the excited correspondence between Ann and Bud at the end of the race are in the Richards Papers. Also see Molly Ivins, “How Ann Richards Got to Be Governor of Texas,” in Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?, 275–284.

Chapter 20: The New Texas. Warm correspondence between Ann and Bud Shrake continued after the election. In interviews, Mary Beth Rogers described the sessions on South Padre Island, where the inner circle turned their attention from campaigning to governing. I took part in the march down Congress Avenue the morning of her inaugural speech and witnessed the encounter between the new gubernatorial staff of Ann and the departing one of Bill Clements. Abundant newspaper clippings and Bud Shrake’s remarks on his nervousness about waltzing bolstered my observations of the inaugural balls.

Chapter 21: Fast Start. In one of our conversations, David Richards reflected on the unlikely nature of Ann’s election. Richard Moya, Joy Anderson, and Joe Holley told me how they became members the governor’s staff. I witnessed Ann’s appointments of Ellen Halbert, Selden Hale, Josh Allen, and John Hall; Hale told me about taking Ann on a tour of Amarillo’s prison. Joe Holley’s A Blueprint for the New Texas and the State of the State address he crafted with Suzanne Coleman are in the Richards Papers, as are the resignation letter of James Saxton and details of Ann’s order of a moratorium on new hazardous-waste permits.

Chapter 22: Ethicists. Paul Burka’s rhapsodic “Ann of a Hundred Days” ran in Texas Monthly, May 1991. Newspaper clippings on the rejected nomination of Karl Rove and Ann’s appointment of Terry Hershey to the board of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department are in the Richards Papers, as are the different views of Ann, District Attorney Ronnie Earle, and Barbara Jordan on the worth of the ethics bill of 1991. Also in the Richards Papers is Ann’s speech at the Waco reunion of the Texas Rangers.

Chapter 23: Odd Couples. Correspondence between Ann and Bud Shrake on movies, laughs, and love are in the Richards Papers. The reception for Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip and the seating arrangements at the formal dinner are detailed at length in the Richards Papers. On the income tax proposal and the uproar that followed, see McNeely and Henderson, Bob Bullock, 174–175 and 184–185. On the consolidation of environmental agencies and the initiatives regarding clean air and natural gas, see the Richards Papers. Also, I was much involved in these matters while writing speeches and research papers for Garry Mauro and John Hall, and I have continued to follow the evolution of these areas. On the lieutenant governor’s bullying of Andy Sansom, see Bob Bullock, 228–229; I also interviewed Sansom about that and his relationship with the governor. For the lieutenant governor’s near fistfight with Dan Morales over redistricting, see Bob Bullock, 213–214. For the exasperation of his chief of staff, see Bob Bullock, 206–207 and 224–225. In interviews, Mary Beth Rogers and Chuck Bailey told me about the breakdown in relations between the governor and lieutenant governor. Chuck Bailey and Dave McNeely told me about the meeting with Bullock that Ann left in furious tears.

Chapter 24: Favorables. A video clip of Morley Safer’s October 1991 60 Minutes profile of Ann is in the Richards Papers, along with the poll conducted by Harrison Hickman and interpreted by Matthew Dowd and Mary Beth Rogers. Molly Ivins’s admiration of Ann’s former husband is conveyed in “David Richards,” in Who Let the Dogs In?, 163–165. Extensive files full of details on prison policy and the Ruiz lawsuit are in the Richards Papers, along with details of the murderous rampage of Kenneth McDuff. In addition to material found in the Richards Papers, Dorothy Browne briefed me extensively and shared documents on the launch of the most ambitious drug and alcohol treatment program in the nation’s prisons. Ann’s “Texas Facts” and “Texas Commitment” drives to bring new industries and jobs to Texas and prevent the closing of a General Motors plant, the stated approval of her probusiness outlook by Ken Lay, and her speech in support of NAFTA are in the Richards Papers. Mike Sharlot told me about the vacation at the Pacific retreat of Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

Chapter 25: White Hot. In an interview, Marlene Saritzky told me about meeting Ann and taking her to meet helpful people in Hollywood before she had become a national figure, and about Ann’s subsequent hiring of her as the Texas film commissioner. The Ann Richards roast in Port Arthur may be viewed in the C-SPAN Video Library, December 29, 1991. In the Richards Papers are details of Bud Shrake’s commitment to write Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book and newspaper clippings about Ann’s barbed joke about President George H. W. Bush at the Washington Gridiron Show. Files in the Richards Papers tell the story of DJ Stout’s brainstorm to put Ann on the July 1992 cover of Texas Monthly in white leather, riding a Harley-Davidson, and the star treatment Ann received in New York at the Democratic National Convention that nominated Bill Clinton and Al Gore. David Gergen’s mention of the Texas Monthly cover and Wayne Slater’s Dallas Morning News story about her arrival at Madison Square Garden are in the Richards Papers.

Chapter 26: Heartaches by the Number. Bud Shrake’s letter to Ann about folly and the Trojan horse, along with details of the downfall of Lena Guerrero, are in the Richards Papers; especially vivid are the description of the incident by Chuck McDonald, as told to Karl Rove biographers Wayne Slater and James Moore in Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential (New York: Wiley, 2004), and Barbara Jordan’s stern criticism of Guerrero’s ethical behavior in an interview by the Austin American-Statesman. Also in the Richards Papers are files on the scandal involving National Guard colonels Richard Brito and Danny Kohler. Dorothy Browne witnessed Ann’s demand that Selden Hale resign for ordering prison system employees to investigate another board member’s possible ethics conflict.

Chapter 27: Troubles by the Score. In an interview, George Shipley told me about Ann’s ill-fated attempt to appoint Henry Cisneros to fill the U.S. Senate seat of Lloyd Bentsen, whom Bill Clinton had appointed his secretary of the treasury. Details related to her eventual appointment of former congressman Bob Krueger and his eloquent memorandum of support for her positions on women’s choice and stem-cell research are in the Richards Papers. For the New York Times coverage of Kay Bailey Hutchison’s rout of Krueger in the ensuing special election and Jane Hickie’s amusement about Krueger’s appointment as ambassador to Burundi, see McCall, The Power of the Texas Governor, 108–109. For his brave and vindicating performance as U.S. ambassador during the genocide in central Africa, see Krueger and Krueger, From Bloodshed to Hope in Burundi, 87–174.

The Houston Press and the New York Times detailed charges against Senator Hutchison in the indictment for official misconduct in February 1994. For Ann’s response to the indictment, see Paul Burka, “Sadder But Wiser,” Texas Monthly, April 1994. A GOP counterattack orchestrated by Karen Hughes resulted in an embarrassing memo about the improper use of telephones to Governor’s Office employees by the chief of staff, John Fainter, which is in the Richards Papers. Dick DeGuerin shared some details about his defense of Senator Hutchison. Also there are numerous press clippings that relate District Attorney Ronnie Earle’s apparent missteps that led to the ordered verdict of acquittal by the trial judge.

Chapter 28: Sass. I heard the newly elected governor George W. Bush blame Patrick Buchanan for his father’s defeat in a 1994 meeting with reporters. In an interview, attorney Shelton Smith told me about his lobbying in Washington for Ann in behalf of the Superconducting Super Collider and the meeting with President Clinton in which she threatened to sue him if Texas’s investment in the project was not returned. Ann’s difficulties with environmentalists, property-rights activists, and the federal Department of the Interior are detailed at length in the Richards Papers.

The governor and Bud Shrake kept their romance alive throughout these governmental difficulties, as demonstrated by letters in the Richards Papers. The GOP barrage of open-records requests and press releases written by Karen Hughes are in the Richards Papers. Former Texas Ranger Joaquin Jackson e-mailed me about his amusing dustup with Governor Richards. Chief of Staff John Fainter kept an unsigned diary of the Branch Davidian standoff and tragedies. Also, Dick DeGuerin, who met with David Koresh and tried to negotiate a peaceful settlement, shared his perspective on the tragedy with me, as did an FBI agent who took part in the siege and assault. John P. Moore told me of his belief that the relationship of Ann and Bullock was damaged beyond repair when she led an invasion of reporters into his office to demand his position on the concealed-weapons bill.

Chapter 29: Collision Course. I learned details of the combat career of the young bomber pilot George H.W. Bush in official records of the U.S. Navy. George W. Bush wrote about his fury over a Newsweek cover depicting his father as a reputed “wimp” in Decision Points, 43–44. The Richards Papers contain abundant files on George W. Bush’s career as an oilman. In an interview, Bob Beaudine told me about Bush’s uncertainty about challenging Ann and his request to help him win the job as commissioner of Major League Baseball; also see Beaudine, The Power of Who (New York: Center Street, 2009), 6–9. Mary Beth Rogers told me about the totally different feel of the campaign and the performance of the candidate in 1994. The Richards Papers include a file labeled “The Jane Hickie Problem,” which includes her apology to rock star Don Henley in 1989, as well as Houston Post editorials alleging misconduct and calling for her resignation as director of the Office of State-Federal Relations. Samples of the correspondence Molly Ivins received, along with an undated, affectionate letter she wrote to Ann, are in the Molly Ivins Papers, in the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. In an interview, Chuck Bailey discounted conjecture that Bullock helped Bush in his campaign against Ann. For Bullock’s long-held grudge against Barbara Jordan, see Bob Bullock, 85–88, and for his grudge against Max Sherman for the same reason, see Bob Bullock, 249–250. In an interview, George Shipley criticized Ann’s coterie of feminists, blaming them for failing to court Bullock’s favor, but said they were all at fault for underestimating the Bushes’ CIA-related skill in running a negative campaign.

Chapter 30: Queen Bee. In interviews, Mary Beth Rogers told me about George W. Bush’s early stumbles, and Joe Holley related his discomfort with how Ann’s inner circle operated and her apparent lack of fervor about winning another term. Ann’s increasingly defensive speeches are in the Richards Papers, along with details of her record on capital punishment. The letter of rebuke from Enron’s Ken Lay and the internal memos about Bill Ratliff’s denunciation of the appointment of “homosexual activists” are in the Richards Papers; John Ratliff’s unsigned summary of Bush and Rove’s campaign tactics in the 2000 presidential race is in Dubose, Reid, and Cannon, Boy Genius, 133–143. The progression of the polls and reports on the debate between Ann and George W. Bush are in the Richards Papers. R. G. Ratcliffe e-mailed me about the story he didn’t get to file about Howard Pharr. Details of Karl Rove’s allegations, along with verified highlights of the Bush-Richards debate, can be found in Wayne Slater’s online columns for the Dallas Morning News. In interviews, Mary Beth Rogers told me that she and Ann knew the race was likely lost when Ann called Bush “a jerk” in Texarkana; Karl Rove shared their opinion. Molly Ivins wrote about the incident and Ann’s prospects in a column reprinted as “Ann Richards vs. Shrub II,” in Who Let the Dogs In?, 171–173. Harold Cook told me about having to bring her the news she had lost. Slater attributes the poignant telephone conversation between the Bushes to Karl Rove in an online Dallas Morning News column.

In an article for Time, Hugh Sidey recorded George H. W. Bush’s exultation about his son’s payback for that insult about the silver spoon. Dorothy Browne shared the letter from the woman in Midland who wrote thanking Ann for the prison alcohol and drug abuse program that saved her son’s life. Bud Shrake told me about Frito-Lay’s offer of a million dollars to be in the Super Bowl commercial with Mario Cuomo, and Marlene Saritzky told me about accompanying Ann on the Doritos video shoot in California and being with Ann on her last day as governor.

Epilogue: Passages. Jim Henson shared the transcript of his incisive interview with Ann when she was seventy. I located Maureen Dowd’s Christmas Eve 1997 column excoriating Ann and former senators George Mitchell and Howard Baker for accepting high-dollar fees from tobacco companies. My examination of Ann’s lobbying activities is drawn from extensive, multisource research of the tobacco suit and its settlement; see especially the New York Times, December 15, 1997, and Public Citizen, “Burning Down the Houses: Big Tobacco’s 1997 Congressional Lobbying,” March 1998, http://www.citizen.org/congress/article_redirect.cfm?ID=908. Robert Bryce detailed the New Jersey wetlands-development dispute and lobbying in “Shattered Icon,” Austin Chronicle, October 24, 1997. Cecile Richards told me about the joy Ann experienced in traveling the world with her children. Shawn Morris told me about accompanying Ann to a speech to Democrats in Pueblo, Colorado, and Texas House representative Mark Strama wrote to Morris about Ann’s arrangement of a fund-raiser for him in New York. In the Richards Papers, I found Ann’s 1994 speech to the Southern Conference on Women’s History.

Dorothy Browne told me about Ann’s heart-rending call seeking an internship for a young woman she didn’t know the morning after she was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. The letters of consolation and encouragement from Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, President George W. Bush, Governor Rick Perry and First Lady Anita Perry, and Katie Couric are in the Richards Papers, as are her note to former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and her correspondence with her first love and husband of twenty-nine years, David Richards. Clark Richards told me about how her strength and resistance failed in six months in spite of her hope and the skill and treatment of doctors at M.D. Anderson.

I attended the memorial ceremonies in Austin, where Bill Clinton consoled Ann’s children and I met former senator Bob Kerrey and spoke with Molly Ivins. An account of her wilderness experience in the Grand Canyon with David and Sandy Richards and Brady Coleman is in Ellen Sweets, Stirring It Up with Molly Ivins: A Memoir with Recipes (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 2011), 239–240. I heard the humorous tales of Hillary Clinton and Lily Tomlin and the self-assured eulogy of Ann’s granddaughter Lily Adams. Archivists of the Shrake Papers at the Wittliff Collections found the eloquent farewell Bud Shrake read at the grave site that morning; they also shared with me Shrake’s e-mail interview by Brant Bingamon. Jeanne Goka described the mission of the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders in Julie Tereshchuk’s “Jeanne Goka, In a Class All Her Own” in Austin Woman, August 2010. On a hot summer day, I visited the Texas State Cemetery, which Bob Bullock had made once again a place of beauty, and I stood alone for some moments before the graves of Bud and Ann, side by side in the shade of a live oak tree.