Volume 3
March 1987-February 1988

We Knew Him When

Faculty opposition to the Reagan Library at Stanford continues to mount. Last week, the Faculty Senate voted 26-4 to scale down the library or move it to a more remote part of campus. But in an unprecedented appearance before the Senate, board of trustees President Warren Christopher said there was "very little likelihood" the trustees would "want to reconsider commitments," made publicly, adding that the trustees were honored by the Reagan's "expression of interest" in the Stanford site. Christopher said he hoped the faculty would "understand where we stand as a great university having made commitments to the president of the United States and really to the country as a whole."

--Public Eye, April 9, 1987

Hmmm. Warren Christopher. Now, where have we heard that name?


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Stanford Soap Opera

The decision [to abandon plans for a Reagan Library at Stanford] was another setback for Donald Kennedy, the already beleaguered Stanford president whose recent announcement of his pending divorce was preceded by a public spectacle worthy of television's Dallas. It seems that a certain female employee of the university's housing department, with whom Kennedy has been close, began to publicly object to playing second fiddle to Kennedy's wife, Jeanne. Kennedy, who has taken a sabbatical, was once rumored as a possible candidate for the Senate seat currently held by Republican Pete Wilson. Now speculation centers on when Kennedy will step down.

--Public Eye, April 30, 1987

Kennedy resigned in late 1991 after a series of embarrassments, including one related to billing taxpayers for costs associated with a wedding reception thrown by the board of trustees to honor his new wife. Gerhard Casper replaced Kennedy as Stanford president in March of 1992.


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US and Him

He says he never sought wealth or a place in history. As he frequently tells it, it just happened to him. Just the same, he indulged in the pleasures that accompany extreme material success. One of the first things he did was to buy a high-performance Beechcraft Bonanza, which he promptly crashed on a runway. After he recovered from a five-week bout of amnesia, he left Apple for a year as he finished his undergraduate degree at Berkeley.

He returned to the public eye with plans to hold a three-day rock festival that would utilize state-of-the-art sound and video technology and feature bands like the Police and the Talking Heads. The first [US] festival ... lost $12 million. ... Wozniak threw a second one in the Summer of '83, believing that the lessons learned would enable a commercial success on the second go. Instead, it cost him about $12 million more.

Despite the bath, Woz, as his friends call him, looks back fondly on what was one of the grandest parties ever thrown. "I got to meet Valerie Bertinelli," he says, pointing to a photo he keeps on his wall.

--Steve Wozniak, The Metro Interview, April 30, 1987


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Dead-Horse Candidate

Unsuccessful U.S. Senate candidate Ed Zschau reported last week that his campaign still owes various creditors about $850,000--despite the fact that he has already donated $750,000 of his own money. "It is very hard to get people to donate to a campaign when the outcome has already been determined," Zschau noted.

--Public Eye, June 11, 1987

Calling it a matter of honor, Zschau successfully resolved his debts through appeals to supporters and from his own personal resources. The expensive 1986 campaign was the unpretentious local entrepreneur's last stab at electoral politics. He recently left a job as head of IBM's AdStar division.


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Right Prediction, Wrong Year

A high-level California GOP leader says the George Bush for president campaign is dead in the water. Despite the fact that Bush has already raised nearly $10 million for the 1988 campaign, this state GOP kingpin feels that Bush is too closely associated with the Iranamok scandal and that key California Republicans have begun to look for an "electable" candidate.

--Public Eye, July 2, 1987


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FMC's Congressional Fighting Vehicles

The valley's two liberal Democratic congressmen--Don Edwards and Norm Mineta--have been targeted for an educational campaign aimed at getting them to renounce their support of the locally manufactured FMC Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Critics claim that billions are being wasted on a "fighting vehicle" that fails to meet the standards of performance set by Congress and the DOD. The campaign will be led by Bernie Ward, the West Coast director of Business Executives for National Security, a Washington, D.C., lobbying organization that seeks to "bring a businesslike approach to national security matters."

--Public Eye, Nov. 19, 1987

Yup, same Bernie Ward, now "lion of the left" KGO talk show host. The FMC Bradley contract was finally cut after the project was targeted by then-Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Albert Gore, Jr. Edwards and Mineta, however, never did waver in their support of the local defense contractor.


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On to March 1988-February 1989

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