PW: Your new book, Profiles in Courage for Our Time, offers portraits of recipients of the Profiles in Courage Award. What led your family to create an award based on the kind of moral and political courage your father discussed in his book?
CK: I think one of my aunts originally proposed the idea. Our purpose was to recognize and reward public service at a time [early 1990s] when cynicism and antigovernment feeling was widespread. We wanted these to be inspirational stories, living memorials, that would show people that public service and selflessness were not outdated ideas. In the beginning, people told us we'd never find anyone to win the award, that no politician was worthy. But now, in the last six months, the pendulum has begun to swing back again and public servants are once again heroes.
PW: The winners here range from local prosecutors and school superintendents to U.S. senators and presidents. Was this kind of breadth an important element of the award and of this book?
CK: It was always our intention to look at all levels of government, to show that you don't have to be a senator or a president to make a difference. Our society depends on everybody making tough decisions and acting from their conscience. But in handing out the award, we've come to realize that when the winner is local, it can be difficult for people to properly appreciate their actions and their courage. This book is a wonderful way of contextualizing their work.
PW: What kind of impact do you think the award has?
CK: Beyond the promotional impact, it can have a great personal impact on the winners themselves. Carl Elliot, the first winner, was a case in point. [U.S. Representative Elliot was chased out of office in 1964 because he fought against school segregation in Alabama.] He was living in poverty, he was very ill, and then he won the award. It changed the way people thought of him, and made a tremendous difference in the last years of his life.
PW: Among the book's essays, Bob Woodward writing about Gerald Ford and his pardon of Nixon was particularly interesting.
CK: Yes, we'd heard that Bob was working on a book about Ford's pardon of Nixon. It was a decision that almost everybody back then thought was wrong, but time has shown that he made the right call in helping the country to move on from Watergate. Giving Ford the award was an important step in reevaluating all that, and I think it meant a lot to him.
PW: Obviously, in the last six months there have been plenty of opportunities for moral and ethical courage. Have you been impressed by anyone in particular?
CK: There have been several in the House, and in the Senate, that have stood up against the grain. Russ Feingold, for instance, who was the only one to vote against the Patriot Act.... But ultimately, public servants of all kinds were the winners. They helped generate this overwhelming response after September 11, of what it means to be a public servant and what it means to be an American.
