Interview with Charles W. Berger, November 14, 2003

MOYEN: Your story. So.

BERGER: Will you tell me if I need to be close or far away, or there may be a lot of questions you ask me that I just don't know.

[Pause in recording.]

MOYEN: All right, I'm here with Charles W. Berger, uh, who served the Seventeenth Senate District from 1980 until '96, is that correct?

BERGER: That's correct.

MOYEN: Um, served on Senate appropriations and revenue, elections and constitutional amendments and judic-, judic-, judiciary criminal--

BERGER: --yes--

MOYEN: --committees?

BERGER: And maybe another one or two that I don't remember, but those three I do remember.

MOYEN: Okay. Um, why don't we start a little bit with your family background, and not just your--how far back do you know about your family, and even ancestry, where they came from?

BERGER: Uh, I don't know an awful lot, but, but my father's family, uh, 00:01:00pretty much came from Virginia.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: My father himself came here back when coal was first being mined here. My mother's family is from Shelby County.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: So that's about as much as I know about them. I've never been real big in genealogy. Um, I know a little bit about my family, but since most of them were from Virginia and stayed there, I, I really didn't get to know them very well.

MOYEN: Okay. Do you know about when your father moved here?

BERGER: Uh.

MOYEN: Just approximately.

BERGER: Oh, let's--I shouldn't be saying that--uh, how old is my brother, Joyce?

JOYCE BERGER: [Nineteen] '72.

BERGER: [Nineteen] '72. So, I would say my father was here, what, six or eight years before that? Something, something like that. JOYCE: 00:02:00Okay. I'll say it's sometime(??) in the late twenties.

MOYEN: Okay. And involved in--

BERGER: --does, does it mess you up any for her answering?

MOYEN: No, not at all. Why, why don't we just say for the record that Mrs. Joyce Berger is here with us--

BERGER: --right--

MOYEN: --to help us along. To help us keep our facts straight.

BERGER: Exactly(??).

MOYEN: So, um, now, you said he was involved in coal?

BERGER: Yeah.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: His, his, some of his family before him came earlier and were in the coal business, and my, my father came here and actually worked in the mines for a while until he had a mine accident, and from there he moved into the, to the, uh, I guess the management part of it. He was even a postmaster for a long time and he was, kept the payroll, things that those kind of people do.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And he did that for years.

MOYEN: Okay. So, um, tell me about your childhood, where, where you grew up here in Harlan County.

BERGER: I was born and raised in what we call Mary Helen, which is a 00:03:00coal camp, if you know what a coal camp is.

MOYEN: Could you explain it?

BERGER: Well, for example, Lynch, Kentucky, uh, that was where, uh, United States Steel, they opened up mines there. And, uh, at Benham, Kentucky, which is close by here, that was International Harvester. The same thing down at what we would call Black Star, Kentucky, between here and Pineville, that was Henry Ford that came in here and bought up a lot of the land. And I suppose at that time they were making cars.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And part of that had to do with making steel, and so forth, so these big companies, I'm assuming, were buying up land and mining the coal themselves to make it cheap.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: So that's, that's sort of an assumption on my part, but.

MOYEN: Right.

BERGER: But all of Harlan County was pretty much, in those days, what 00:04:00we call a coal camp. That was where the company, they would build the Houses, and the rent was a little bit of nothing.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And everybody knew everybody else.

MOYEN: Right. Um-hm. So, did you grow up in a home that was owned by the, by the mine? Or by the ----------(??)?

BERGER: Partially, I suppose. And I really don't know the details of that.

MOYEN: Um-hm, um-hm.

BERGER: But, as far as management versus labor, my father would be labeled as, as management, if that's the question.

MOYEN: Okay. Um-hm. Um, did that ever pose any tense problems, or can you recall sitting around at a dinner table with, with those types of discussions about either labor, or management with?

BERGER: Yeah, it, it did. My father wasn't much one to talk about things like that, but, as far as personally being involved, I would, because during, during that period of time when I was real small, and 00:05:00all up through high school, and later on, we would have strikes. And in those days, strikes were not carrying a placard saying somebody was unfair; it was a little bit rougher than that.

MOYEN: Um-hm, um-hm.

BERGER: So, that's, that's the part I, I remember very well. Had loss of friends who, uh, were victims of those circumstances.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Can you think of any, uh, specific strikes, or any, um, threats of violence, or, or violence that you recall that made an impact, or an impression on you?

BERGER: Well, I, I think all of them had a little bit of an impact on me. Uh, if I were running for office I wouldn't tell you this.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: But I ain't running for office. (Moyen laughs) So, so, all of those things I guess made me lean pretty heavy toward management. And one reason for that is the coal camp, Mary Helen, that I mentioned, 00:06:00people just got along real well. And even though there might be a county-wide strike, uh, we still got along fine. And, uh, uh, none of my friends ever said anything to me or, because I probably didn't know what was going on myself.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And everybody just got along all right, and it would be outsiders that would come in with pistols loaded and everything else, that, that would happen, and beat up people in, in our camp.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And then they would leave and we wouldn't even know who they were probably.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Okay. Um, tell me a little bit about, especially in Harlan what, uh, just the mystique of Harlan, and outsiders coming in, or Eastern Kentucky in general, and talk about big companies buying up land, or outsiders for strikes, do you recall, was there much 00:07:00discussion of outsiders, um, and problems that they posed at all, or?

BERGER: Um, maybe a partial answer to your questions, it's, it's my understanding that for a number of years, uh, people who owned coal companies like Henry Ford and people like that, uh, they had pretty much said that the strikers were communist.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Now what, you know, I, I don't know how to explain that, but that, that was part of the reason that they, they fought the, uh, union so hard.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: They'd say, "Well, they're just a bunch of communists coming in here from New York," or somewhere. And that, that'd be.

MOYEN: Right, um-hm.

BERGER: That would be it.

MOYEN: All right. Could you tell me a little bit about your schooling experience? Um, what schools did you attend here growing up?

BERGER: Okay. When I was in grade school, again, at Mary Helen, and 00:08:00most of these coal camps had a school.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: So, I went, uh, through the sixth grade at Mary Helen, and then, and then--(laughs)--I was rewarded(??), or whatever, to go to military school. So I went to MMI, which is Millersburg. And you're familiar with it.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: I went there through the seventh and eighth grade. And then I came back and even though the school district I lived in, I should've gone to what at that time was Laurel High School, now Caywood High School, I. I actually came to the city school. The independent system of Harlan County. And--

JOYCE: --tell him how you there(??).

BERGER: Huh?

JOYCE: Tell him how you got there(??).

BERGER: Well, I'm not real sure how I got there. I probably wasn't as--

JOYCE: --transportation-wise, is what I meant.

BERGER: Oh, you mean with bus?

JOYCE: -----------(??) or on the VTC.

BERGER: Oh, yeah, we had, had a bus line here in Harlan County at that time that was named VTC, and I think that meant "Victory to Country." But anyway, from the, the county, the county school, I couldn't ride their bus. So, this, this other bus would come to Mary Helen ten or twelve times a day, and back to Harlan. So, that's the way I rode back and forth, and I think it cost, uh, I believe it was a nickel, either a nickel or a quarter to, to ride the bus one way or the other, and of course sometimes, like after football practice, uh, we might be through at 8:00, and why another bus wouldn't run until 10:00 or 10:30 at night, and I'd have to ride that bus to get back to Mary Helen.

MOYEN: Huh. Um-hm. Now, let me back track just a little and ask you, 00:10:00um, when, when were you born?

BERGER: Nineteen thirty-six.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: January twelfth.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: That's the only date I can remember of anybody.

MOYEN: (laughs) So, uh, some of your schooling experience, we would've been talking about during World War II.

BERGER: Yeah.

MOYEN: And what were your first memories of the war? Do you remember people leaving to go off to war?

BERGER: Yeah, I do, I do remember some of that, because, uh, some of my neighbors were killed. And, others were wounded and so forth. And, of course, those that were killed didn't make it back, others did come back and went right back to work in the coal mines.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: So I, I remember that part of it pretty much, and then, of course, in later years, uh, people would talk about John Jones or someone like that, of having been into the war and coming back. 00:11:00So, I probably remember as much of it from that as I do personally remembering(??) it.

MOYEN: Okay. Could you elaborate just a little more on, you, you mentioned getting selected to go to MMI.

BERGER: Um-hm.

MOYEN: Um, how did, how did that transpire? How did that come about? And what were your feelings about leaving? Uh, you know, junior high age?

BERGER: The, the leaving part didn't bother me, and part of that had to do with the fact that I had an older brother, five years older than me, and he had already been to military school, and while still--I believe he was a senior at, uh, MMI when I first went there in the, uh, seventh grade.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: But as far as leaving, it didn't bother me at all.

MOYEN: Um-hm. What was that experience like?

BERGER: Well, uh, I've always said if, if I have a son, I would want 00:12:00him to go to the same kind of military school that I went to. Because not, uh, my mom and dad were pretty strict disciplinarians, but they couldn't be with me all the time.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: So, there(??) were little things that I probably was into that I shouldn't have been, and that probably, uh, helped encourage, uh, them deciding that military school might be good for me. And it was.

MOYEN: Um-hm. And, and you mentioned that your brother finished--or was a senior there, but you ended up coming back for high school?

BERGER: I, I ended up coming back after the eighth grade to Harlan High School, the independent system, rather than the county system. And finished four years of high school at Harlan High.

MOYEN: Okay. Um, the, the schools here in Harlan, are they still, is there still a county and an independent system, or have they merged?

BERGER: Yes.

MOYEN: Still.

BERGER: Still two systems.

MOYEN: Okay. All right. Uh, any animosity between people at the time, other than, say really cheering for your basketball team when, when that came (??)?

BERGER: I don't believe so. At that time I don't, I don't believe there was much problem. Of course there was a lot of, uh, uh, oh, what do you call it, uh, between certain schools. For example, when I was in high school, Harlan would play Laurel, and that was a, uh, big deal. But it wasn't to me, because I wasn't from Laurel. I was from Mary Helen, and it was not that big a deal. But now when, when Harlan played Laurel High School, which is now Caywood High School, that was a big deal to me, because it was, uh, most of those boys were friends of mine.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

JOYCE: There were ten high schools in the county at that time.

MOYEN: Ten high schools.

BERGER: I think that's right.

MOYEN: My goodness. How, how many are there now? Would you know if there's one or two? Or are there more than?

BERGER: I'm sure--

JOYCE: --there are three county schools, and one, one independent.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: And we're right now in the process, supposedly, of some sort of consolidation and building a new school, and maybe consolidate either two or three of those schools, and I don't know the details of that.

MOYEN: Um-hm, um-hm. I'm sure partially that had to do, all the high schools transportation was a little bit--would it have been a --------- -(??) at that time?

JOYCE: Yeah, and the population of the county declined (??).

MOYEN: Okay.

JOYCE: ----------(??) Caywood High School, wasn't that at one time, Loyal, ---------(??), and Hall, all three of those. And I guess Black Star, too. Now that I think of it(??).

BERGER: About four schools were consolidated at one time. It's been that way for a number of years now.

MOYEN: -----------(??) Any teachers, uh, elementary, your time in MMI, 00:15:00or back in high school, that had an impact on you that you can think of? That, wow, you know, they really.

BERGER: Yeah. I really shouldn't say this, but at, uh, MMI there happened to be one particular teacher that I did not like, and I don't like him today. But, I shouldn't, probably shouldn't say that, but that's just a fact.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Um, why was that? BERGER: Because he was, he was, he was mean. That's the best way I know to put it. And I only wished at that time that I was as big as he was so I could be as mean as he was.

MOYEN: (laughs) So, um, although that was a negative experience, was there anything positive that you were able to, to draw out of that, or?

BERGER: Out of that particular incident, or military school in general?

MOYEN: Either.

BERGER: Well, in general, I thought military school was great, because, 00:16:00uh, I guess at that time I was very interested in athletics, and that's about all we did. That's all we had to do there. You know, there were no girls in the school, and if there had have been I'd have been too bashful to say hello to them probably. But, uh, but other than that I thought military school was great.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: I, I thought it taught you to say, "Yes, sir," and, "Yes, ma'am," and those kinds of things.

MOYEN: Um-hm, right. How about growing up before your college years, how about, um, religion? What, what, if any, churches did you attend here or in Millersburg?

BERGER: Well, the only, of course, the only church--

MOYEN: -- -----------(??)--

BERGER: --the only church I've really been close with is the Harlan Baptist Church. And, uh, at Mary Helen there was a Methodist Church, 00:17:00and of course during those days, there wasn't much traveling around, so, uh, whatever the Methodist Church had, if they had a party or something, I went to the Methodist Church, uh, just like anything else, but yet on Sunday, we drove to Harlan to go to the Harlan Baptist Church.

MOYEN: Okay. Was that a pretty big event at the time? Sunday church, and family around afterwards, was that a typical type thing? A ritual for your family or not, not really?

BERGER: Well, my, my father was never real involved with church affairs.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: At least that's my recollection. He, he went, went to church every Sunday, but he was not involved. Now, uh, uh, my mother, that was a different situation. She was, was really involved in the church.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Did that have any impact on you? BERGER: Um, I'm, I'm 00:18:00sure it had an impact that I don't even know about, but, uh, you know, as a, as a matter of fact, I was kind of bored a lot of the time, uh, because I, I wasn't really interested in who Moses was, and all those kind of people, back in those days.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Um, what about just the general environment in Harlan County? Are there things that you could say growing up here, um, had instilled in you certain things that had impacted your life, and also your political career?

BERGER: Uh, I'm, I'm not sure how, how to answer that, but I'd say as opposed(??) to the county, uh, my father had more influence me than 00:19:00any, than any one person.

MOYEN: Um-hm, uh-hm.

BERGER: And it was not because he did a lot of talking. It was just because I knew that he knew what was right and wrong.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Uh, and did he enforce that pretty well?

BERGER: He didn't have to enforce it too well, because I knew what he could do. And, uh, he, he didn't have to have a lot of long talks with me or anything like that. He could, he could get more done by just nodding his head a certain way; that was good enough for me.

MOYEN: Right. Now, what was your father and your mother's names?

BERGER: Uh, Ben Berger, and then Rebecca Ethington(??) Berger was his wife.

MOYEN: Now, are either of them still living?

BERGER: No.

MOYEN: Okay.

JOYCE: She came here as a schoolteacher to Mary Helen. And that's how she met his father.

MOYEN: Okay. All right. Um, now, could you tell me a little bit about- -or, how long did your mother continue teaching when you--

BERGER: --yeah, she, she kind of taught off and on, as I recall. For example, during the war, uh, may, I mean, she had taught when she first came here and probably stopped teaching, and then during the war when there was a shortage of teachers and all, she went back to teaching. And, uh, all together, she probably, I don't know how many years she taught, but probably thirty years I guess.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: But her last, I don't know, her last ten years probably, or more, she did not teach.

MOYEN: Okay. Um, can you tell me about your first, what might be called political memories? Either discussions around the dinner table, 00:21:00or added elections, or reading something in the paper, um, what are, what are some of the first things you remember about politics, either national or local level politics?

BERGER: Well, I guess in high school, uh, you know, you're always having president of the class or the prettiest boy or those kind of things, I--(both laugh)--remember that a little bit. I never did win any of those, those pretty boy contests. (Moyen laughs) Other than that, uh, for example, you, you don't go back far enough probably to remember when Truman fired MacArthur. Do you remember that?

MOYEN: I remember reading it. (laughs)

BERGER: Well, I can remember that my dad thought that was a terrible thing. And today, I think my dad was wrong. But at that time he was 00:22:00not wrong. But he didn't talk a lot about it. Uh, I remember--and I don't know why I remember this--but when MacArthur gave his speech--and I don't know what year that would have been--and said, "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away."

MOYEN: Um-hm. Right, um-hm.

BERGER: And I can remember my dad saying, "I want you, the next time you go to Harlan, I want you to buy that record and bring it home." And I did.

MOYEN: (laughs) Um-hm. Um, but was there much discussion around your, your home and all about, about the New Deal or World War II or?

BERGER: Yeah. Yeah, now, my dad was a Democrat by registration. Everybody was a Democrat. Should have been.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: But my dad did not like Democrats that were in office during 00:23:00that time. For, for example, he, he thought Roosevelt was a bad person. And probably today we think Roosevelt was the greatest that ever lived. But now, my dad didn't like him. And all of this had, had to do pretty much with the labor and management.

MOYEN: Okay. Okay.

BERGER: So, uh, whether he was right or wrong, my dad was sincere in what he thought.

MOYEN: Um-hm, um-hm. Do you recall much about Kentucky politics? Uh, especially, um, being Democrat and then having these factions within the Democratic Party, which was, you know, the party itself was so dominant at the time in Kentucky, but you would have your Clemens- Combs, and your Chandler faction?

BERGER: No, I really don't remember much about that and I don't think that was ever much of a, had much of an impact on me, because I was a 00:24:00little bit young.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: I can remember--I don't know what age I would have been, but, uh, I guess it was a state Democratic convention of some kind, and someone asked me to go. And I didn't, you know, as far as I's concerned, it was just like going coon hunting, I didn't know what they was going to do. So, but I went to Louisville and went to that, but, but nothing happened that interested me.

MOYEN: Um-hm. But you did end up, you did decide to go?

BERGER: Oh yeah.

MOYEN: To see what it was all about?

BERGER: I didn't learn much, but I was there.

MOYEN: Do you remember when that was, when you went?

BERGER: It was--and that's why I'm not sure what the event was, but I can remember that Bert Combs gave the address.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: I can remember people sitting around me or something and they would comment about how much Bert Combs had improved as a speaker and 00:25:00all that. And that didn't mean anything to me because to me he was just talking.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Well, why don't you, uh, tell me a little bit about what you did after high school. Did you go directly into college?

BERGER: How much space do you want to ----------(??)?

MOYEN: We, I've got plenty of tapes over here. (all laugh)

BERGER: Well, I'm not sure I can remember all of them. But, uh, I started out at, uh, what is now Georgia Southern. At that time, it was Georgia Teacher's College at Statesboro, Georgia.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: And, I was in that school probably about three or four different times. Because in between times I would go to some other college for a little while, and I didn't like it much, so I would come back to 00:26:00Statesboro. So, so.

JOYCE: His father was very understanding. (Moyen laughs)

BERGER: He was, he really was.

MOYEN: May I ask you how you chose a, a school in Georgia? South Georgia?

BERGER: Uh, yeah, you can ask me that. Uh, the, the main thing I think about is when, as I was getting ready to graduate from high school, I didn't want to go to college, I wanted to go in the coal mines. Everybody worked in the coal mines, and that's what I wanted to do. So, it finally got to the point that everybody was already enrolled in college and it was too late to get in supposedly, but the coach at Georgia Southern, some way or another, had been a close friend of my mother when they were growing up as, just as kids. So my mother got on the telephone and called this coach and said, "Is there any way you can get my boy in school?" (laughs) And, and he worked it out, 00:27:00someway or other and said, "Send him on down here. We'll try it." So that's how I got started. And, and, uh, it just happened to be a, it was a small college at the time, and I was pretty big into hunting and fishing and all that stuff. And all real quick I met boys that lived, actually lived in Statesboro, so I became fast friends with them, and I didn't want to leave. But I did leave. I, I think all the time I was saying to myself, "I ain't going to be no teacher. But what am I going to be?" So I would , uh, one semester, one quarter, I went to the University of Georgia. And another time I went to, uh, Abraham Baldwin Agriculture College; that's in Tifton, Georgia.

MOYEN: Um-hm. I've heard of it.

BERGER: And I stayed about two weeks. And the gnats were so big that 00:28:00I couldn't stand them. And I said, "I'm, I'm going somewhere else; I can't take this any longer." So--(laughs)--I, so, I came back to Georgia Teacher's. They said, "Well, you know, you've been here before plenty of times, we might as well take you again," and I got along all right.

JOYCE BERGER: And he took his dog with him.

BERGER: Yeah, I took my hounds with me. (Moyen laughs) And then, of course after that, uh, I was somewhere in(??) Georgia for about, I think about five and a half years, I believe. I wasn't studying real hard at that time. And so, uh, I came back then to the University of Kentucky. And, uh, I believe I was there two years and a summer school to have enough--I had a lot of credits. But it was mostly horseback riding 00:29:00and archery. So--(Moyen laughs)--when I came back to the University of Kentucky, I ------------(??) take English, things like that. So it took me a while to, to graduate from the University of Kentucky and from there I went to the University of Tennessee Law School.

MOYEN: Okay.

JOYCE: His timeline is a little bit--you weren't in Georgia five and a half years. You couldn't have been.

BERGER: Okay, four and a half years.

JOYCE BERGER: I don't think it could have even been that. I think it had to be more like three and a half.

BERGER: Oh, that could be. That's why I ask you if I could(??) have my wife here.

MOYEN: Now, let me ask you this, what did you think about your semester in Athens, and, and what about, what about that made you?

BERGER: Okay, at Athens, I think, uh, somebody else knew what I was going to major in. And I didn't know much about majoring in anything. But, uh, I finally got into something that it had to do with being a landlord and how you would deal with tenants and all that stuff, and 00:30:00I actually kind of studied a little bit there at the University of Georgia. But, uh, I was always, I didn't have many personal friends at the University of Georgia to run around with. So, I wanted to go back to Georgia Southern.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: That, so I did.

MOYEN: You mentioned your mom calling your coach. Did you play any sports? Or did he just happen to?

BERGER: No, he, he was just a friend of my mother, I guess.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: And I didn't play sports in college.

MOYEN: Okay. What about in high school?

BERGER: Yeah, I played football in high school.

MOYEN: Okay. All right. Uh, did you go to any football games at, at Georgia?

BERGER: Uh, I don't remember going to a sing--in fact, I may not have been at the University of Georgia during football season.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: But I'll tell you one thing I do remember is, uh, I started to say it was Johnny Cash, but it wasn't Johnny Cash. Who was, who was 00:31:00the singer that died a few years ago? I can't, I can't remember his name now, but I remember he had a concert there. Golly.

MOYEN: Waylon Jennings?

BERGER: No, it wasn't Waylon, it was, you know, one that, that, the fellow, fellow shot another fellow, and he was on the run, and the posse was after him, and the shame, and he felt a sudden sting in his- -you know, real popular fellow at that time. And his looks changed so much in later years, and I can't, I just can't say his name ---------- (??), but that's immaterial, I guess.

MOYEN: Okay. So, did you decide to come back to the University of Kentucky because you wanted to be closer to home, or because you knew it was time to finish up a degree in something? Or, what about, what lead you come back to Kentucky and U.K.?

BERGER: Well, I think all along during these three or four years when I was at Georgia and all, I, I knew, or I felt like that I couldn't be a farmer. But that's really what I wanted to be, other than a coal miner, I wanted to be a farmer, but I felt like with most all farmers are poor. And I didn't want to be poor. So, I said, "You know, I'm going to have to get into something where I can make a little money maybe." And in the meantime--I guess this is right--my brother had graduated from Duke, and had gone into the service for a couple of years and came back and started at law school at Duke University where he finished. And, I think that had some bearing on it. I guess you're, you're saying, "Well, I've got an older brother that did something, so maybe I can do that, too."

MOYEN: Um-hm, um-hm. Now, when you finished at U.K., did you have a, a 00:33:00was it history, or business, or prelaw degree?

BERGER: Business. I believe we called it "The Commerce College" at that time. And that was--I got pretty interested (??) now, I believe I was there two years and a summer school. And, uh, that got into accounting, and economics, and I, I remember very well by my second year going to economics, like, it was Economics II class, and the first day, I went to class, there wasn't but about eight or ten people in it, and the teacher started talking about how many angels could dance on the head of a needle. I said, "By dang, I've hand, I've heard enough of this. This ain't for me." So I just left. (laughs) I didn't get no grade for that. (laughs) That was bad news.

MOYEN: Looking for something a little more practical, huh?

BERGER: Yeah. (laughs) I said, "That's over my head." That didn't come out of Harlan, I guarantee you. (both laugh)

MOYEN: So when you finished at U.K. did you go directly to law school then?

BERGER: Yeah.

MOYEN: Okay. Why Tennessee?

BERGER: Okay. Since this is going to be published in Life magazine, the reason--(Moyen laughs)--the reason I went to Tennessee is they wouldn't have me at Kentucky. And the problem was--and I hope I'm not making an excuse--is all these grades I had, for all these many years, they weren't what they were supposed to be, so it, it--because I was lucky to get a C. I never dreamed (??) of ---------(??) a C. So my grades were not high enough to get in, and the people at the law school of Kentucky said, "Now, really what you need to do, you go to another law school. Get your grades up just a little bit more and then come 00:35:00on back here." Well, problem with that was when I went to Tennessee I liked it so well that I didn't want to go back to Kentucky. So I just finished at Tennessee.

MOYEN: What did you like about Tennessee?

BERGER: Uh, I liked, uh, I liked the girls quite a bit. (laughs) And my wife here was one of them.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: But, uh, uh, I'm sure this is wrong, but I've always said that the difference between the University of Kentucky and the University of Tennessee--and don't think I'm a Tennessee fan, necessarily--

JOYCE BERGER: --because he's not; I am--

BERGER: --my wife is, but I'm not. (Moyen laughs) But it was, it was more, it seemed like over at Tennessee, people were more friendly like I was used to. Uh, and at Kentucky, uh, everybody wanted to talk about sororities and fraternities. And some way or another there was a conflict about it, I, I didn't particularly like. I mean, over at 00:36:00Tennessee, I would go to the main library over there, even, even though I didn't have a book with me. I'd go to the main library and girls would be sitting around studying, I'd just pull up a chair and sit down and, uh, start talking to them about, about the lesson, of course.

MOYEN: Right. (all laugh)

BERGER: But that was the one difference I saw between the two schools.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: And some of the best friends I guess I'll ever have I met right at, at the University of Tennessee in law school.

MOYEN: Okay. Can you tell me a little bit about, um, how you met your wife, and, and a little bit about your courtship?

BERGER: Well, I went after her for four or five years, and finally got her to slow down long enough to, to talk to her. And I've always felt it was my pleasing personality that attracted her to me. (all laugh) 00:37:00What, Joyce, was about, uh, I guess I'd been in law school a year before she came to the University of Tennessee as a student.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: So, really before that, I, I didn't know her very well.

MOYEN: Although you're both from--

JOYCE BERGER: --we lived here, we lived here and went to the same church.

MOYEN: Okay.

JOYCE BERGER: But he was six years older than me, so even though I knew him, you know, we, we had no reason to be in the same circles.

MOYEN: Right, okay, okay.

BERGER: But then when we got on at the University of Tennessee, we started courting pretty heavy.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: And that's how we wound up getting married and so forth.

MOYEN: Okay. Now, this might be dangerous but can you tell me what year you got married?

JOYCE BERGER: Very dangerous. (Moyen laughs) [Nineteen] '61.

MOYEN: [Nineteen] '61. Okay. Was that a couple years after finishing law school?

BERGER: No, we were still in law school. I was still in law school--

JOYCE: --it was during his last year of law school.

BERGER: Okay. All right. Now, um, may I ask how you decided--Mrs. Berger, how you decided to go to Tennessee?

JOYCE: Well, it was kind of fed, fed to me from the time I was this high, because my mother was from Tennessee and a big Tennessee football fan.

MOYEN: Okay. All right.

JOYCE: So, my dad really didn't care one way or the other. And if he went to the ball games, he might be reading the paper while the game were going on (??). But my mother was. And that, I just kind of evolved from that.

MOYEN: So she wouldn't like much that I got my master's degree at Alabama, would she? (all laugh)

BERGER: Ooohhhhh. She ----------(??).

MOYEN: Yeah. Okay. So, uh, when you got married, and then, um, finished law school, did you move back here ----------(??) after that?

BERGER: Shortly after that.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: Right.

MOYEN: Let me ask you a little bit about that decision because I, I 00:39:00think it's fair to say one of Harlan County and Eastern Kentucky's pro- --and other counties as well, one of their biggest problems is those that go and get a college education often don't return. Um, what made you all decide to come back home?

BERGER: Uh, uh, I'm not real sure.

JOYCE: I don't think it was ever a question really, was it?

BERGER: No, uh, I can remember my last year of law school. Uh, like the FBI and other agencies would come to the school there to interview you, hoping you would join up with them and all, and, and I interviewed with two or three of them, and they, like the FBI, they said, "We'll send you to Washington." Well, that did me in right then because I wasn't about to go to Washington as long as, as long as I could stay away from 00:40:00it. And, and I just liked Harlan. Harlan was my home. And I, uh, this business people would talk about large law firms, you know, with thirty-five or fifty people in a law firm, and that didn't sound any good to me, so I, I just felt like coming back to Harlan was okay. I, I figured I could make it. And I figured Joyce could get a job which she did. And she supported us for quite a while.

MOYEN: And now what was your degree in?

JOYCE: I didn't get a--I got a degree in MRS (??).

MOYEN: Okay, all right.

JOYCE: I was in Tennessee about a year and a half.

MOYEN: Okay. Um, and when you moved back here, did you open up a practice immediately?

BERGER: Yeah, I did--

MOYEN: --just yourself?

BERGER: It was myself, but there were, there was a building with, uh, two other, as I recall, two other lawyers in that building, and one of these lawyers had said to me while I was waiting here for the bar 00:41:00exams, said, "When you get your bar exam passed," said, "Why don't you just come up to our office?" And said, "We've got room for you," and said, "You just use our books(??)," and so forth. "There won't be any money involved. We won't charge you any rent," but and that's just the way it was. So I did that for, what, Joyce? Oh, five years probably, something like that.

MOYEN: Okay. And what type of law did you, was there a specific niche that you kind of found?

BERGER: No, because there are no niches.

JOYCE BERGER: At that time.

BERGER: Everybody, you know, I mean if, if you were a lawyer, you did everything, supposedly. (all laugh) I found out right quick that wasn't true. (all laugh) So, but no, I did everything from divorces, criminal, adoptions, just, just anything. Because to me, anybody that 00:42:00would walk in the door and say they were looking for Charlie Berger tickled me to death.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: You know, I said, "I've got to do something to, to please these people and do a good job for them," and all that(??).

MOYEN: Um-hm. Um-hm. Did you enjoy doing that?

BERGER: Yeah, I did. I did. Uh, the worst part, at that time we didn't have public defenders.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: You know what public defenders are? So, what would happen when, when a fellow was indicted or something, and he didn't have a lawyer, the circuit judge would appoint a lawyer for him. And if you were the last lawyer to come to that town, you got most of it. So I wound up spending my money running all over the country interviewing witnesses and not getting paid anything for it. So that part wasn't real --but it was interesting, I mean, I enjoyed it, but I could tell that wasn't long range.

MOYEN: Right, right.

BERGER: It wasn't going to work.

MOYEN: Um-hm

[Pause in recording.]

MOYEN: All right. So when did you, um, move beyond the lot of the public defense, and, and you said you didn't see yourself doing that long term. Was that, how many years(??)?

BERGER: Uh, along about that time, and, and again, I don't have these dates down, but my brother who was a lawyer, I've already said, when he finished school at Duke, he came to Pineville, Kentucky, and there was a lawyer there at that time named Logan Patterson. And, uh, my brother became a partner with Logan Patterson. And Logan Patterson, uh, you probably never heard the name, but years ago other lawyers used to talk about Mr. Patterson as being a lawyer's lawyer. He, he had no interest in money, but he loved to practice law. And he was 00:44:00a good one. And so my brother, uh, stayed with him until he retired, actually, Patterson retired. But my brother was more of a business person, and he said, "Hey," you know, "this is kind of crazy for you to be doing all this work for all these big companies and all this stuff, and you never send out a bill." The bank would call him up so often and say, "Hey, Mr. Patterson, you don't have any money in the bank." He said, "Well, I guess I better send a bill, hadn't I?" So my brother changed all that. He said, "You know, we, we need to be charging for your work, not necessarily mine, but for your work." So, that's, that's kind of how that, that worked.

MOYEN: Okay. So, when in this process did you start thinking, 'I might like to run for some sort of public office?' Did you get involved in any public service before your, your service in the Senate?

BERGER: Yeah. I did. I served four years on the public service commission. And this was who, uh, Wendell Ford was elected Governor, if you, if you remember there was a primary election, Wendell Ford beat Bert Combs. I was Wendell Ford's, uh, campaign chairman here in the county. I don't know why; I guess nobody else would take it. But, anyway, that's, that's what happened. I, I had an interest in politics before that, because the election just before the one I'm talking about was between Louis Nunn, the last Republican Governor, and Henry Ward.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And I was Henry Ward's campaign chairman. But this came about mostly because four or five of my friends who were involved in politics, were in a sense using me. I mean, they, they felt like I was 00:46:00pretty clean; you know(??), no scandals or anything like that and was young. I was a new face and so forth. And that part probably worked a little bit.

MOYEN: So, so they would approach you to be a campaign manager for--

BERGER: --right, right--

MOYEN: --was it the entire county? Or a certain, a couple towns?

BERGER: No, the entire county.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: Yeah. So anyway, then getting, getting back to the, the, uh, Wendell Ford beat, uh --no, Wendell Ford beat Bert Combs in the primary, and then did he beat, um--

JOYCE BERGER: -- ----------(??)--

BERGER: No, he was on the court of appeals.

JOYCE: Tom Emberton.

UNKNOWN: Tom Emberton.

BERGER: That's right. You remember that name.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: So, uh, right after that was when, uh, uh, Wendell Ford called me and said, uh, "Hey, Charlie, how would you like to be on the workers' compensation board?" And I said, "I don't believe I care much about that." I said, uh, "You know, I've got into that in your election, 00:47:00and of course I liked you, and I still like you, and no matter what you say I'm going to like you just the same." I said, "So just don't worry about it." And that was the end of it until about a week later he called again. And he said, "How would you like to serve on the public service commission?" And I'm thinking, What the hell is a public service commission? (all laugh) I said, "Governor, I believe I'd make a good one (??)." So--(laughs)--so I served four years on the public service commission. There was all politicking getting to that point.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Now, what exactly did you do on the public service commission?

BERGER: Well, the public service commission pretty much controls all the utilities in Kentucky. And back in those days, particularly, there were an awful lot of these smaller, water companies. And a lot of them apparently had been put in by people who shouldn't have been working. 00:48:00Did a lot of bad work. And that was, that was during the time when, uh, when the, if you remember the coal market just skyrocketed, and we started--what's the name of the, the extra charge they put on your bill?

JOYCE: Fuel adjustment.

BERGER: Fuel adjustment clause. And there was a big uproar about that. I mean, you would get your bill from say Kentucky Utilities. You'd have, and then down below there would be another figure added in for the fuel adjustment for the coal. In fact, the public service commission had rule that, that, that the, the utility could not stand that. So they were going to spread it out amongst their customers, which they did. So, other than that, that was the main thing that we did. That was also at a time when, uh, there was a lot of talk about 00:49:00telephone rates. And we had a lot of hearings that lasted four or five days, talking about what was the, the right rate of return.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: You're a stockholder.

MOYEN: Right.

BERGER: And you're, you know, you're, you're either going to get a pretty good return on your money, or you're going to say the heck with Kentucky Utilities, or South Central Bell, I'm going to put my money on Walmart or something like that. So that was a concern, you know, trying to balance those things.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: But, but it was very interesting. It was work that I had never been involved in before, so, so that helped.

MOYEN: So would you go to Frankfort for this?

BERGER: Yeah. No, we didn't move to Frankfort.

MOYEN: Right.

BERGER: Uh, I, I probably would average one day a week being there. Uh, there would be certain days that the entire commission, which was what, five of us, I believe. All five of us hear less important(??) cases, 00:50:00we would assign to just one commissioner would take that case and decide it. So, I probably would average one to two days a week going to Frankfort.

MOYEN: Okay, okay. Can we step back and could, could you tell me just a little bit about what in the world you do as a campaign manager in, in a county? Accounting. What does that entail? I mean, are you the one that ends up knocking on doors and saying, "I'd appreciate your vote."

BERGER: The FBI didn't send you to find out if I(??) was buying votes. (all laugh)

Okay. I wasn't sure of that, uh, to be of that. It involved an awful lot of work, and it was, it was good work, because what you're doing, you're going out here, you're going to people's, uh, homes, knocking on doors, trying to talk to them, you're going to a shopping center--if there was one--we didn't have one then I don't guess, but talking to, 00:51:00uh, people who --back in those days, and maybe still yet, usually in a precinct there's a person, or maybe two people who have lifelong influence. Whether by family, and a lot of it was family; they'd all be related to each other. But there was one daddy rabbit that would say, "This is who we're for." And it was, it was that kind of work that you did. You were maybe trying to raise a little bit of money, which was awful hard to do.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Just you didn't, I've, I've always said that money and -------- (??) went away in an election, and that's to Frankfort; they don't send it back. (Moyen laughs) So, maybe it's, maybe it's still that way. But, uh.

JOYCE BERGER: One thing you did that I remember is a little unique, was to get, uh-------(??), each of the high school's ---------(??), most of 00:52:00them couldn't vote anyway, but their parents were sure interested. But they had, um, ----- covers(??)--

BERGER: --bumper stickers--

JOYCE BERGER: --bumper stickers--

BERGER: --yeah, that was, that was, that was a part.

MOYEN: And I say it probably reached some adults, but maybe they wouldn't be reached otherwise(??).

BERGER: Yeah. Because it really, uh, now, the Henry Ward race, uh, I didn't--seemed like I really wasn't as involved, and didn't, didn't work as hard as I did later on for Wendell Ford. And I'm not for sure that it may have been because, I mean, Bert Combs being from this area, he was supposed to win.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And he won this county by three votes.

MOYEN: So, it was a big victory of sorts, right?

BERGER: Yeah, it was a big victory.

MOYEN: Right, right.

BERGER: To, to, to lose by only three, three votes that way. But she's right. I, I would, I would check around and find out with each high 00:53:00school, uh, a boy or girl that was just pretty well liked by everybody. And I would go to them and their parents, and say, "Hey," you know, "I've just gotten into this thing, and I need a lot of help, and would you, would you consider your daughter or your son helping me in this election," and so forth. Well, that impressed them, you know. So that was a good start.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And, and nobody ever turned me down. And we would have, we had, oh, I don't know, just three or four meetings with these kids. And then, then, they, uh, as she says, they would go back home and they'd never heard of Wendell Ford or anybody else, but they said, "Well, Charlie says that's who we ought to for." And they said, "Well, we'll be for him then." (laughs)

MOYEN: So, can tell me a little bit about, um, the race that Louis Nunn won, and what your thoughts were then, and maybe even now, as to why a 00:54:00Republican in Kentucky, when, uh, my best guess is probably Republicans are out registered, at the time. --------(??)--

BERGER: --you're really, you're really talking about Henry Ward and Louis Nunn, and Nunn wins.

MOYEN: Right.

BERGER: Is that the election?

MOYEN: Yes.

BERGER: Well, my answer to that is I really was not concerned about anybody outside this county of Harlan. I mean, I, I just didn't want to hear it.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: People would talk about maybe, 'Henry Ward's in trouble,' and I thought, I said, "I don't care if he's in trouble or not. He, if he, if it takes my vote for him to win, he's going to get it." And at the same time, Henry Ward was not very well liked. He was, he was the kind of fellow that we needed, because if you asked him to do something, uh, that he shouldn't be doing, he'd tell you right quick, "I ain't going 00:55:00to do nothing like that." And he was too good, so he lost. And that's not to take away from Louis Nunn, I mean, that's fine. Louis Nunn's okay(??). But, Henry Ward, that didn't help him any. And of course, Democrats' been in power forever at that time.

MOYEN: Right.

BERGER: So that's, that's my remembrance of that. But then when Wendell Ford came along, and I can remember--and I shouldn't do this--but for four years almost --------(??) while Nunn was Governor, if you remember, he'd raise the sales tax. If I was in a restaurant or whatever it was, I was getting ready to pay and I try to make a joke out of it, ----------(??), I'd say, "Who put that on there? Well, by golly, I'll never vote for him again." And the people heard that. (all laugh) But, I enjoyed doing that.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And then I, there was a ----------(??) we had little cards made up, and I'd go in little grocery stores and lift, lift up a can of corn or something and put this card, put this so when people would reach to get the corn and say, 'Who put that there?' They'd say, "Charlie Berger's been here again." But, oh. But, you know, overall I had an awful lot of help. Had to have a lot of help. I couldn't do it myself.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Okay. When, in this and you know, in this did you all start your family, having, having kids and all?

BERGER: That was, that was almost while we were, before we came back to Knoxville

MOYEN: Okay.

JOYCE: We had a brand new baby.

MOYEN: Okay. Um, did, was that difficult, at all? Driving back and forth to Frankfort, even one day a week? Or, or if we jump ahead to your time when you did serve, being gone, um, during the week with the family?

BERGER: I, I don't think so. Joyce has always been real good about staying by herself. Not getting--I don't know whether she's afraid or not, but she, she stayed by herself a lot. So that part didn't bother me at all.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

JOYCE: But it is hard for the family.

MOYEN: Right. Um, when did you decide, or who did you talk to that convinced you to run in, in 1979?

BERGER: Okay, the fellow that was in that Senate seat decided he was not going to run, and that's when(??) I had a bunch of political friends. And I got together with two or three of them and, uh, had a suggestion that, uh, a person who I will not identify, I said, "We ought to get that fellow to run here," and I named five reasons why that fellow 00:58:00could win." And, uh, they listened to that, and they said, "Well, what's wrong with you running?" And I said, "Hey now, I didn't come to talk to you about that; I want John Jones"--that wasn't his name--but, "I want John Jones to run because I think he can win." And they said, "Well, why don't, why don't you run?" So, that put me to thinking, I said, "Well, give me four or five days here." So I got on the phone right quick and started calling around to different people saying, "What, what do you think about that?" And most all of them were saying, "yeah, why don't you do it? You can win." So that's kind of what started it.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Me trying to help somebody else and it turned out it was me.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Do you recall who your opposition was?

MOYEN: Yeah. Can you say his name, Joyce?

JOYCE: I, oh, yeah, -----------(??)----------

BERGER: ----------(??)---------- and you never heard that name in Harlan before. He's what (??)? Greek. Real nice fellow, at that time was real involved in the, uh, what is it?

JOYCE: Young Republicans.

BERGER: Young--not Young Republicans, it's like the Chamber of Commerce, what's the other?

JOYCE: Jaycees.

BERGER: Jaycees.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: Jaycees. And he was a good candidate, and he had won a primary. He had beaten a fellow in the primary that, that was a surprise. So it, it was a hard race.

MOYEN: Okay, and he, he was a Republican?

BERGER: Yes.

MOYEN: Was that common at that time to have Republican opposition? Or were a lot of the races still decided in the primary? Do you recall?

BERGER: Uh, no, going back to that period of time, I don't think it was that unusual.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: You know, if you had a "Sergeant York" no matter how he was registered, he probably was going to win.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And that's, and that's a compliment to Harlan County.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Okay, um, on what issues did you campaign? Were there any specific issues where you differentiated yourself from your opponent? Or, where you said, "This is why I want to go to Frankfort for you."

BERGER: No, uh, you know, to me it was--and Joyce may disagree with me- -but my recollection is it was more of a popularity contest. I mean, I didn't say I was going to save the world. I wasn't going to say I was going to change this. Um, I probably just kind of went along with the flow of things. And, and, um, abortion was just being talked. And I would pretty much say, "Hey, I don't know much about abortion. We're going to handle it the best we can, but I don't know much about that." But one of the big--wasn't a big issue, but it was one of the issue, people around here, uh, labor, and, uh, union, and wages, and that sort 01:01:00of thing, that was more important to most people than some of these other. I mean, something that affected Louisville, I could've cared less. That's not bragging on me; that's criticizing me.

MOYEN: Right.

BERGER: But, it didn't matter to me what they did down there in Louisville, just help us here in Harlan.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Had your law practice, besides the campaign that you helped run, had your law practice allowed you to develop a number of contacts here that were also helpful?

BERGER: Yeah, it did. It did. Sure. Even, even though as far as -- --------(??) would have been public defenders, except it was me(??), I helped them, or they thought they helped them, and they were, they were my friends. ----------(??) court, which was okay; they voted, too.

MOYEN: Did you, did you do your campaign, did you campaign any differently when you were running than you had when you were helping 01:02:00others run around here (??)?

BERGER: Yeah, it, to me, it's a little more harder, if that's the right word, to campaign for yourself than it is for somebody else. Because it's, it's difficult for me to go to somebody and say, "Hey, will you be for me? I'm really ----------(??) fellow. You ought to be for me," and all that. But, if you're running, and I'm helping you, man, now I can lay it on, as to why we really need you.

MOYEN: Um-hm, um-hm. Do you recall how much you won by in that first election? Was it a pretty good margin of victory, or was it a real tight race(??)?

BERGER: Oh, it, the, the first one was Henry Ward.

MOYEN: I meant your, your race.

BERGER: No, but it, it was pretty substantial though.

JOYCE: No, not the first one.

BERGER: He said the second one. We're not talking--

JOYCE: --no, your race, your race.

BERGER: Oh, my, my first race.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And what was the question?

JOYCE: What did you win by?

MOYEN: Yeah, about what was your margin.

BERGER: It was, it was close.

JOYCE: One hundred forty-one votes.

BERGER: It was close, because my friends were calling me, "Landslide Charlie." (laughs)

JOYCE BERGER: It was a hundred forty-one votes.

BERGER: It was, it was ---------(??) close.

JOYCE: He had, he had, he had a Republican county, which was Whitley, if who, you know, no matter who was on the Republican ticket, they will vote. So it was kind of the same way in a couple of, and say, Bell County was the other way. It was, it was a--

BERGER: --yeah. Will you excuse me a minute?

[Pause in recording.]

BERGER: ----------(??) (all laugh)

MOYEN: Please do. Um, tell me a little bit about--did, did you go to Kentucky Dam Village after?

BERGER: Yeah, I went, that was either the last, or next to the last time the legislature went to Kentucky Dam Village.

MOYEN: Okay. And when you were elected in '79, this is what most 01:04:00people call the watershed election of John Y. Brown for legislative independence. Was that, was that a buzz when you were down there? Were people talking about choosing their own leadership, or who the Governor was going to appoint, do you recall?

BERGER: It was, it was kind of a given, because truthfully the Black Sheep Squadron, if you remember, John Berry, Lowell Hughes, Mike Moloney, they were the ones that did it. Brown comes along and simply says, "Hey," you know, "I'm going to leave you all alone. I'm not going to mess with you. You all do what you, what you want to do." So, I don't take any credit for that part of it at all. But those people I mentioned and two or three others--

MOYEN: --Joe Wright--

BERGER: --they were the ones, Joe Wright, you bet.

MOYEN: When you went there, were you able to say, "These are the committees I think I'd like to serve on." Or were you kind of told as a 01:05:00freshman, "Here's'--

BERGER: --no, it was just a matter of routine. There was a piece of paper that they asked you to write, you know, your name on it, and then put down the committees that you would like to serve on.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And then, of course, leadership would take that, and do the best they could. It, it didn't always work because you couldn't have fifteen people on a five-member committee. So, uh, but that was the one, if you're remembering back, when the three Eastern Kentucky senators were elected, me, Benny Ray Bailey, and John Doug Hayes. And the idea was that if the three of us got on appropriations and revenue, that was a big deal, and people talked a lot about that, you know, before it happened. And it did happen.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: But it was, it did not happen because of a promise. Nothing 01:06:00like that. It simply happened because we asked for it, and the leadership at that time delivered.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Now, looking back on it, it didn't make that much difference, because the three of us put together didn't know enough to, to-- (laughs)--do all the--but we were there and it was a big deal. It was a big deal.

MOYEN: Um-hm. And was that, was that a big deal in the sense that, hey, here are some people who are going to be able to bring back some money or some services or roads or whatever it was?

BERGER: Probably. Probably a lot of people, uh, felt like that. But, unfortunately, if you'll remember, almost immediately after John Y. Brown was elected was when we had all these deficits.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And we couldn't do anything, or we had to do everything we could just to stay where we were.

MOYEN: Mm. Um-hm. Let me ask you a little bit about--well, I want to 01:07:00ask you about your first day in the Senate, but before we get to that, let me ask you about what it's like waiting for results to come in from different precincts. Was that, was that an intense night of?

BERGER: Oh, yes.

MOYEN: How would you describe your feeling?

BERGER: Well, I don't know if I could describe my feelings, but in those elections, in almost every precinct I had one person, I said, "Your job, you stay there until they post the return, and you call me immediately. You, you may have to walk two miles home, but as quick as you can get home you call me." So, we would know the result pretty dag-gone quick.

MOYEN: Uh-hm.

BERGER: But, but as far as feeling, uh, you know, uptight about it and all, yeah, you (??) were, because you just didn't know.

MOYEN: Right.

BERGER: You, you have a feeling. But you wouldn't admit it to anybody.

MOYEN: Right. Um, now, obviously it's a little different in terms of 01:08:00trying to figure out, um, how the race is going to turn out, but did you know pretty well where your strong stocks were going to be, and where your weak precincts were going to be, and if I lose here, but it's not a substantial loss, I'm in pretty good shape? Or had, had you--

BERGER: --you described it better than I could. Yeah.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: You, you really have, because there were places that I knew no matter what I did, what promise I made, we weren't going to get no votes. And I mean, other place that we were going to clean their plow(??). And that's about the way it worked. It was another matter of trying to figure that out. There wasn't a lot you could do about it.

MOYEN: Right.

BERGER: It was just set that way.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Now, at the time was your district, did your district change?

BERGER: Oh yeah.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: I think three times while I was there.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Now, during your first election, would it have been Bell, Harlan, Whitley, and Letcher, is that?

BERGER: No, it was, was all of Whitley, except the city of Corbin, and what, wasn't there was four, either two or three precincts in Perry County?

JOYCE BERGER: No.

BERGER: Okay.

JOYCE BERGER: -----------(??)

BERGER: So, that's Harlan, Bell, Whitley except the city of Corbin. And that's where all the Democrats were. In the city of Corbin. Everything else was, uh, Republican. MOYEN: Um-hm. Okay. Um, so, you, you sneak out a victory, and you go and you get your committee assignments. Can you tell me what it was like your first day in Frankfort? What there did you say, "Hey, this is exactly what I expected," and what there was just completely beyond what you had expected?

BERGER: No, I said, "Where is the restroom?" (all laugh) That's how qualified I was(??). Please tell me where it is. And I'll leave you alone. (all laugh) No, I guess I, I kind of wanted people to feel a 01:10:00little bit sorry for me, as opposed to somebody else over here who kind of pretends to know it all. That I could get a lot more done and get along better and I think it kind of worked.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Just asking more questions, right?

BERGER: Well, asking more questions, that's right.

MOYEN: Um, can you describe your first interactions or any interactions that you had with the Governor or with the Senate leadership, which, I guess, at the time would have been Joe Prather? Uh, and some others(??).

BERGER: Yeah, I can't say much as far as John Y. Brown, because as, as I'm sure you've already learned, his attention span was of about three minutes, depending on how important it was. (laughs)

MOYEN: Uh-hm.

BERGER: I remember him calling me down two or three other people and asking them, uh, about, he wanted--what was it, it was some kind of tax, I can't remember if it had to do with gasoline tax. And I just said, "Governor, I, I really am not interested in taxes." (laughs) And that ended that conversation. (laughs)

MOYEN: Uh-hm.

BERGER: And he, because he wasn't much to, to, uh, sit around and shoot the breeze like we're doing.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Um, could you tell me a little bit about, um, the, your first session? Did you, was there any legislation that you either wrote, sponsored, voted for that stuck out in your mind as either really good or I'm not so sure I want to vote for this, but I think I have to? An, anything that you can think of?

BERGER: Nothing, nothing that really, uh, made a great impact. I would say, if anything, there would have been a few bills that I had very little personal interest in, but because my friends were for it, I was for it.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: But if it, you know, directly involved me, that was a different situation, but I don't remember anything like that in the first, first session. I, I felt like getting to know the people, and getting them to know you was more important than, say, uh, "Here's a package that we have to pass for the commonwealth that'll go down the drain (??)."

MOYEN: Right. Um-hm. How did being a senator, a state senator, affect your relationships with people here? Did it at all? Did it--before was 01:13:00it just, 'Hey, how are you doing?' And then after that, 'I need this, this, or this done.' Or, 'Can you do this for me?' Or, or did that happen much at all?

BERGER: Yeah. That happened a lot. Most of it was irrelevant. (laughs) For example, neighbors across the river here, they called one night and, and said, "Charlie, see, you know that Martha Layne, don't you?" "Who?" "Martha Layne, that, that woman down there in Frankfort." I said, "Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know her. What do you need?" He said, "Well," said, "John," or whatever his name was, said, "He was down there in Georgia the other day, or other night," and said, "He ran into a little scrape (??). And some way or another he bounced over and got into Alabama. And don't you know they wanting to throw him in jail now?" (all laugh) I said, "----------(??)." (all laugh) I said, "Well, 01:14:00----------(??) now." What it's about. It just, he said, "He came in here the other night, scratched up, and beat up somehow." I said, "Well, that's him all right." (all laugh) Oh, but people were always calling, especially about federal things.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And, you know, I guess one of the things on my mind, doesn't prove anything(??) but, Joyce, don't you remember the lady that called and said she wanted me to be for the prayer in the school. And I said, "Which one?" And there was a long silence there. I said, "Which one?" I said, "I'll do any, anything you want, but you've got to tell me which one you want." And she, she was in effect(??) saying she didn't 01:15:00know what she was asking(??) for. Which I'm, I'm sure she did exactly that way. But that was the only answer I could think of at the time.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Are we going to have the Koran, or all these others, or all these others, or is it the one we think it is.

MOYEN: Uh-hm.

BERGER: But, they all kind of, especially social, social security. I ain't got nothing to do with social security. But who believes that? You know, if you're, you're a senator, you know everything.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

JOYCE: He had since then had prayer in schools (??).

BERGER: (laughs) Yeah. See, I ----------(??)

MOYEN: (laughs) Talking about issues, you, you had mentioned the abortion issue or prayer in school issues, are, would you say that those are some of the more divisive, hot-buttoned issues, or what other issues did you realize that you may have not, that where people are going to get upset one way or the other.

BERGER: Oh, that's hard--

JOYCE BERGER: -----------(??)

BERGER: Yeah, you're right. I thought the same. Teacher's salary, uh, failed by one vote. Of course, I voted the right way at that time, which was the--it, it wasn't teacher's salary, was it? Or, it had to do with union, unions.

JOYCE: Teacher's bargaining.

BERGER: Collective bargaining.

JOYCE BERGER: Collective bargaining.

BERGER: Collective bargaining for teachers. And that was when John Y. Brown, supposedly, had promised KEA that if he were elected Governor, he would, he would try his best to get collective bargaining for teachers.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And I was not for that. And I voted against it. And it failed by one vote. Of course, that could have been anybody's vote.

MOYEN: Right.

BERGER: But it failed by one vote. So, that, that was tough. Uh, especially for your(??), as I recall, the first session, I think it 01:17:00was(??)--

JOYCE: --Any kind of program, you know, whether it's, it's, uh, home, school ----------(??) it a health--not home health but it's something where the government is providing money--

MOYEN: --um-hm.

JOYCE: Any, any, any program that anything like that, you're going to get phone calls ----------(??) postcards this high.

MOYEN: Right. Now, why, why were you opposed to collective bargaining?

BERGER: Probably because of my upbringing.

MOYEN: Um-hm, um-hm.

BERGER: And, and that's bad for me. I mean, here I'm, you need to be for labor. And, I didn't always see things the same way as labor did.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And, and no problem because some of those people had been my best supporters.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Uh, I'd just tell them why I did something.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Say, if, if I did it wrong, I'm sorry but I'll do it again if it comes up.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Do you think a lot of people, even if they disagree, if you say that, "I'm sorry we disagree, but if I did it again," as opposed to saying, "I'm sorry," well, would they say to you, "Okay, I, I respect that. And so I'm going to vote"--

BERGER: --well, not much.

MOYEN: --I'm---------(??).

BERGER: Not much, but that doesn't mean that the opposite is true either. They, they didn't do, you know, it wasn't like, "I'll never vote for you again." Very few people like that.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Very few people.

MOYEN: Okay. Can you tell me about your second race? I think we mentioned that you won that by quite a bit more.

BERGER: Joyce, I had, did I have two--

JOYCE: ------------(??)

BERGER: ----------unopposed (??) races?

JOYCE: Right, but this was the first, the first race you had after you were elected. ---------(??)

BERGER: Okay.

JOYCE: And you won that by twenty three hundred votes, something like twenty-two hundred votes, something like that.

BERGER: Okay.

JOYCE: I can't remember for sure. And then you had two unopposed elections.

BERGER: That's right.

MOYEN: So, the race with ----------(??), he's from Cumberland, is that correct?

BERGER: He had been representative two or three terms, off and on.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Did you know going into that that you had a lot more breathing room? Or, or not? That, that there was going to be a wider margin of victory?

BERGER: ----------(??)?

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Uh, no, I didn't, I didn't know.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: I didn't, I didn't feel all that good about it, but neither did I have a defeatist attitude.

MOYEN: Um-hm, right. Let me ask you about this. When, when you win that second race, there's another Governor's race going on, and Martha Layne Collins does win that. Let me ask you this, did you support Martha Layne Collins? And if--well, either way if you did or didn't-- how important is it as a senator or a representative to choose wisely in terms of who you might think is ----------(??)?

BERGER: I think it's totally irrelevant. And any candidate or any person that would run for office, with the main thing they think is that all the senators, and, uh, legislators would want to be for them, are just sitting and kidding themselves(??). Because guess what? That's between me and you, I'm for me. And that's the way that works. 01:21:00And when I see in the paper that John Jones says he endorses so and so, I say, "Yeah, that'll really get him a lot of votes if he can talk his wife into going(??)." (Moyen laughs) And, and most of them just aren't going to do much. They, now, it might be different if ------- (??) way, the Governor has talked to somebody and says, "If I should be elected, I would like for you to be commissioner of state police," or something like that. And the fellow might say, "Well, this is not a deal, but I would appreciate it if you would consider it." And he might get out there and work his tail off.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: But, but otherwise, I don't, I don't see much of ----------(??).

MOYEN: Okay. Um, was there a difference in the relationship between the Governor and the Senate, when Martha Layne Collins took office? How did, how did her leadership style, how did what she wanted to accomplish differ from John Y. Brown's? Better or worse?

BERGER: My recollection is that Martha Layne just, uh, got along really well with the legislature in general, or especially with the Senate.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Just, uh, what was the boy's name that worked for her? Her right-hand man, you probably. Hayes. Everybody liked him, tried to help. As far as John Y. Brown, he didn't care. (laughs) But now, Martha Layne, I think most of us felt like, hey, she started from grassroots and worked her way up, as opposed to John Y., who ran all over the country and came back and filed today, and was elected tomorrow. You know, it just didn't work so well.

MOYEN: Um-hm, um-hm.

BERGER: Hell, it was kind of funny that Martha Layne Collins announced to run for Governor, I guess, I don't know why, but I thought -------- 01:23:00--(??) didn't do anything. But dag-gone if I didn't drive from here to Versailles where she made that announcement. And I was the only person from Eastern Kentucky at that. And I just did it for the heck of it. It didn't mean anything to me or to her.

JOYCE: She had been in the Senate with you all while she was Lieutenant Governor.

BERGER: That's right. That's probably what it was.

MOYEN: And, and do you think, looking back on your entire career in the Senate, she may have had a little bit of an advantage because John Y. Brown was gone so much, John's in Florida, or gone elsewhere, that she had a little more on her plate, or got to do a little more, would that?

BERGER: You mean as Lieutenant Governor or Governor?

MOYEN: As Lieutenant Governor. Or, do you think that not--

BERGER: --well, we just don't see much of the Lieutenant Governors--

MOYEN: --right--

JOYCE: --except at that time in the Senate. She was head of the Senate.

BERGER: Yeah, but she was presiding over the Senate, didn't even have--well, she had a vote if she wanted to; I think that happened one time. But, uh, no, she got along, she got along. Now she didn't do 01:24:00as well as Governor, because there were two or three things that, bills that she wanted passed that, that failed and all, but there was no animosity. It was just that way.

MOYEN: Do you recall what those were?

BERGER: I remember one of them--let's see. Did one of them have to do with, I think, it was education, part of it was.

MOYEN: I, I know that during her first session she had trouble with her education program, and it turned out being what, that's, that's what the special session--

BERGER: --that may of well be.

MOYEN: Special hearing in '85.

BERGER: That, that's probably right, that's probably right.

MOYEN: Is there anything that you recall about that special session for education in, I, I believe it was 1985.

BERGER: Might've been(??). Because everybody in Frankfort is 01:25:00education. No way(??) --------(??) as to have a degree or something. Everything's education. We're talking about teachers got to have more pay, just like you wanted and I don't blame you. But just keeps going. Uh, like KERA, we thought that was the greatest thing that ever happened salary-wise, and all the teachers were getting hip, hip, hooray (??). And now, that's the only issue, we need more money, so.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Whatever.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

[Pause in recording.]

MOYEN: Now, um, I did another interview, uh, I've done one interview with Eck Rose. And he told me that some of the best advice that he had gotten, um, once he'd won was that what he had to do was go 01:26:00to Frankfort and sit in the back and not say anything. And not do anything; just watch and listen. And he said really that that was a lot of his political philosophy. Um, from what I've read about you, and, and what you're saying here, would you say that you would agree with some of that? That that--

BERGER: --I would agree with all of that.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: All of it.

MOYEN: Okay. Um, because different articles that I've read, in the, in the Herald-Leader, in particular, say things about, that you hadn't sponsored a lot or whatever. And said the same thing about Eck Rose. And yet you both end up in leadership positions. Why is that?

BERGER: Well, one thing people don't realize is that just like leadership, five people, or whatever in a, in a--I don't want to say back room, but just in a room talking about things, and let's say Eck 01:27:00comes up with some idea, and I say, "Hey, that, that wouldn't work, because of this, because of that," but nobody that gets out on the floor talks about that.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: We, We finally come to some sort of resolution, about maybe one or two or them say, "Well, I can't do that," and, "That's fine, the rest but the rest of us can," and, uh, I think Eck told it exactly right. You know, anybody else going down there, I would advise them to do the same thing.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Instead of going down with the idea that they come up with an idea that nobody else ever thought it out. Well, there ain't nothing new; it's all old.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Like I was telling Joyce the other night, you know, the Presidential elections. Year ago when I'd hear campaigning going on, they were talking about all these different things, and I'd say, "Boy, that sounds good." Or, "Boy, that sounds bad." And don't you know today they're talking about the same thing.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: (laughs) I think, well, I believe I've heard that before.

MOYEN: (laughs) Um-hm. Uh, let me ask you about this. This may--I think it would be a humorous event about, for you. I read somewhere that Joe Wright gave you an award in 1984 for the most effective senator, because you had sponsored one, co-sponsored one piece of legislation, and it was successful. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

BERGER: I, I think that's probably right. I don't remember the details. I remember more about Joe getting up and making such a motion, or, or award, or something like that. What, what he really meant was all this other stuff that we've all wrestled with, and been cussed out about, "Why," said, "Charlie stayed the hell out of it." (both laugh)

MOYEN: Which goes along with what we had talking about before.

BERGER: That's right.

MOYEN: Yeah. Now, something else that did, uh, come up in 1984, and I'll be honest with you, I don't know a whole lot about the issue. Maybe you could explain the various sides of this. Is, is dealing 01:29:00with taxes on un-mined coal.

MOYEN: Hmm. Gosh. Uh, I, I, without even thinking about it, I guarantee I would've voted against it. Just because where I'm from, the coal's in the ground. Once you take it out, tax it; go ahead and tax it, just like we're doing it. But we've got coal out all over the country here that never will be mined. We can't get to it. That there is Pine Mountain running there. That's the one that all these geologists talk about is turned upside down and crossways. You can't mine coal at Pine Mountain, but the people that own that land, as far as I know, are paying tax on an un-mined mineral. I, I wouldn't like that. So, I, you know, I think I'm telling you right when I would have voted no on that.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Um, can you explain to me, just in general--and now maybe 01:30:00this is too vague--but the various pressures from different sides that you would face on coal issues in general, being from here.

MOYEN: Well, it's just natural that it would be coal operators or coal owners versus labor union. And they didn't have to always disagree. Sometimes they were together, even like a safety issue. They would work it out. Maybe we might make a suggestion. Say, "Well, we can't pass it this way, but if, if you'll back off of this or add this to it, maybe we can pass it."

MOYEN: Um-hm, um-hm.

BERGER: But they would be the two that you would expect to have some pressure from.

MOYEN: Okay. Now, in your law practice, did I read correctly--I'm not exactly sure--did you do a lot of, um, black lung cases? And if so, did 01:31:00you typically, uh, defend the companies, or did you defend individuals, or did you do both?

BERGER: I, I did both, but to start out with, it was mostly the plaintiff side.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: I'm talking about six or seven different cases. But that is, when I was in Harlan, and about that time when I went to the public service commission, I was also working the rest of the week with my brother in Pineville. And they were doing most defense work.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Then, even after that, I did mostly defense work. Whether it was workers' comp, or federal black lung. Not 100 percent but close to it.

BERGER: Right, um-hm.

MOYEN: It was defense. I was working for either a self-employed, uh, self-insured employer, or an insurance company.

BERGER: Okay.

MOYEN: Not that there, not that I'm trying to suggest that there's 01:32:00anything, um, underhanded about this, but would the, would the way you vote, or the way you saw things, or the way you dealt with legislation, because you were often on the defense side, would it differ from, say, the way, um, Kelsey Friend would have viewed different?

BERGER: Well, I can't answer for Kelsey. I know Kelsey, you know, a lot of people fussed and cussed at him. Uh, I don't believe, I don't believe mine would. I think mine had more to do with that I understood what something did. You know, it's not just a matter of going in and saying, "Well, here's a bill, that everybody's going to get more money." Well, when you tell me that somebody else is going to be paying a lot more money. So, but, no, I think I was, I felt reasonably good about that. Because really, uh, especially in Harlan County and the 01:33:00area I represented, the, the coal people, they just didn't lobby a lot. Now, they had, I guess, full-time lobbyist down there, but he was always, uh, you know, a pretty quiet fellow. He talked to you a little bit, but as far as any kind of pressure, they, they didn't do it. But now the, like the United Mine Workers here, they'd send you five thousand postcards saying, they didn't know which one to mark, yes or no. (laughs) They'd send it anyway. (laughs)

MOYEN: Um-hm. You mentioned being able to see both sides of an issue. Um, in 1985, someone brought up one that Kentucky needed a victim's bill of rights. And you were quoted as saying, "Well, of course, a victim's bill of rights is a good idea, but, um, but we've got to look 01:34:00and see exactly what it says, and how is it going to affect people." Do you recall anything about the debate over victim's bill of rights? BERGER: No, I really don't. That doesn't, doesn't--it's, it's probably true.

MOYEN: I think it was David Armstrong who may have been commonwealth attorney, uh, had mentioned--

BERGER: --in Louisville?

MOYEN: Um-hm. Had mentioned wanting that, and I think you said something to the effect of that of course you would be for victims and making sure their rights were taken care of, but you didn't want to go overboard or anything. But maybe there was nothing substantive(??) with that.

BERGER: Well, if it had to do with the cost of this victim's rights, because my recollection is, you know, even, even today in every county don't we have one or two people that supposedly represent the victims and talk to them and make sure that the, uh, commonwealth attorney and them, they kind of agree, there's a plea bargain or something?

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: But if that was when that first began, I probably would have said that, "How much is this going to cost?"

MOYEN: Let me ask you this in general, just get your thoughts on this. By the beginning of Martha Layne Collins's, uh, term, you had mentioned earlier about what bad fiscal shape the state was in when you went to Frankfort, got on appropriations and revenue. By 1984, '85, the nation as a whole had moved out of that slump, and, and really, um, were in--the nation was in a real boom time, but Kentucky didn't seem to be. Uh, do you have any thoughts as to why that might have been?

BERGER: Yeah, but the thought I have right quick is that, uh, you know, we have a, what is it? Consensus? Whatever with the appropriations and revenue, those two or three people from over at your university that 01:36:00are experts, angels dance around?

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: You know, they, they do a good job. And how many times I've heard them say that like with the nation's economy improving, that it will be seven, eight, ten months before Kentucky follows suit. But the reverse is also true, they say.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: So, that's, that's about all I can think of on that. That, uh, even though the nation, as you've seen it, was doing better, Kentucky, it may take seven or eight months for it to catch up.

MOYEN: Okay, all right. Another important, uh, package, dealing with the economy and especially with incentives during Martha Layne Collins's time was the Toyota incentives package. Did you vote for that package?

BERGER: I, I would think I did vote for it.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: And probably--shoo, if I was a drunkard, I would have probably 01:37:00gotten drunk after it or something. (laughs) Because I wouldn't have known what it was. Nobody else did. (both laugh) You know, you have that little part about Japanese and Americans and all that stuff, and hell, you had veterans here wearing flags and everything else against Toyota. But, but I would say I voted for it.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: That, uh, that at least it was explained to me that it was a good shot.

MOYEN: Did you, did you feel any pressure from, say, veterans, World War II or others who--

BERGER: --I'd say I probably did.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Probably, probably did.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: You know, people who say like, 'Don't we have enough good Kentuckians that can fill jobs like that?' And, uh, 'Why would the Japanese--and, and 'My brother was killed by a Japanese.' Yeah, that can get (??)pretty rough.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Do you recall any of the issues surrounding Toyota-- originally they had that suggested--they didn't put it in ink or in writing anywhere--suggested that they might have attempt to use coal in some of their plants as an energy source, and I think they ended up not using that. Does, does any of that ring a bell?

BERGER: That sounds just a little bit familiar, but not enough that I could comment on it.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: That, that sounds political.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: To me. That sounds like Kelsey, or Herbie, Benny Ray Bailey, or John Doug Hayes, or me(??) shoved into it, coal too, knowing good and well we was going to get our tail kicked for even trying. (both laugh)

MOYEN: Um-hm. But, um, some things have to be said, right?

BERGER: Oh yeah, yeah. (laughs)

MOYEN: Can you think of anything else along those lines where you thought, Well, this doesn't have a chance, but for the record, I've got to say something or do something, even though I know it's a futile exercise.

BERGER: Probably with the votes, now. As far as speaking on it, I probably wouldn't have. Although I, I can recall a few, and, uh, one of them in particular, later on I guess read it somewhere where it had to do with the death penalty. And I forget what bill it was--what's the, uh, the black boy from Louisville who's in the Senate now? See, he, he had this bill, and it didn't, and it wasn't the death penalty, but it was a big crack in the door. And that's, and that's what I spoke on. Because I say, you know, if you, it don't matter to me if 01:40:00you're for or against the death penalty, that's your business, but just be, just be sure that if you vote for it, you've opened the door for more action on down the road. And that's what's happened so far.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: We haven't gotten all the way to the end, and you know, I'm, I'm not all tore up about it, but at least we ought to understand what we're doing.

MOYEN: Right, um-hm.

JOYCE: He would vote ----------(??) say in the paper, or hear on TV something about, uh, 34-2, or 35-1, or 37-1, whatever it was, I think. He wouldn't ---------(??). (Moyen laughs)

BERGER: He's at it again. (all laugh) Well, that's why I was at times called a, "Closet Republican," or something like that. (laughs)

MOYEN: For just for voting no, when--

BERGER: --yeah, when everybody else, you know, especially when all of the rest of the leadership, and all like that, just say, "My God, what's wrong with Charlie?" I say, "Well, right here's what's wrong with it."

MOYEN: Did, did you ever feel like that harmed you in any way politically?

BERGER: No. No, I really didn't. I, I think if anything it helped.

MOYEN: Okay. All right.

BERGER: I mean, I, I had to have a reason. And, uh, for example, I had two or three of my friends down there say, you know, we, we voted alphabetically, and Dave was pretty quick, like second or third, and two or three of these other fellows would say, they were way on down the line, they would always say they would wait until two or three of us voted. And whichever way I voted, that's the way they would vote. (laughs) They'd say, "We didn't know what it was about; it must have been okay."

MOYEN: Does that happen quite frequently, frequently where, I mean, if, if you're a senator or a representative, you've got a lot of stuff on your plate, and if you look at the, the amount of legislation that's 01:42:00voted on, is there an awful lot of stuff that senators go up there and really haven't looked at a word of it, but have said, asked so and so, someone they trust, 'Is this decent, is this good?'

BERGER: I really don't know if I answer that. Because me talking about my friends and colleagues, I guess, and just leave that up to them.

MOYEN: Okay. All right.

BERGER: I'd say you're not too far off with that, but, uh, I didn't say it.

MOYEN: Okay. All right. Um, now, you obviously ran in your first race and then faced some opposition. Once you weren't facing opposition, you ended up--you did up running again, in a sense, um, for a Senate leadership--

BERGER: --yeah--

MOYEN: --position. In, in 1986, you ran against Fred Bradley for assistant pro temp. How did that develop?

BERGER: Uh, I never did know, and I never did want to inquire a whole 01:43:00lot about it, except Fred himself told me that he named two or three, uh, lobbyists from Frankfort. And I forget who they were, or what they were into, but it seemed like it either had to do with automobiles, or union, or something. But, uh, Fred told me that, and I never did ask anybody else about it. I was afraid they'd take it the wrong way if I asked them. That I'd hold it against him, so I didn't, I didn't want to know. Fred withdrew, really, I don't think we counted the votes. He just withdrew. It was obvious what the vote was going to be.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And he withdrew.

MOYEN: Now, what did you do in that post? What does the assistant president pro temp--

BERGER: --I'm still trying to figure it out. (all laugh) Uh, of course, 01:44:00I guess the first thing you could say off the top of your head is that, uh, in the absence of the president, you would be presiding over the Senate. Which we didn't do that much. They did that more in the House than we did. Eck--uh, I really didn't want to preside. I'm not that much of an outgoing kind of fellow, I guess. So, uh, unless Eck had to go to the bathroom or something like that, I wanted him to be there, and I wanted to be in my seat. It was that simple.

MOYEN: Okay. How would you describe the difference between Eck's leadership style and, and that that preceded him? Was there much of a difference?

BERGER: Let's see, are we talking about, u watch-me-call-it(??) the attorney general preceding Eck, or are we talking about Joe Prather, who?

MOYEN: I, I was thinking of Joe Prather.

BERGER: Joe Prather. Um, if anything, Eck probably was a little 01:45:00different, uh, more low key. Uh, never, uh, never real aggressive, but yet, I mean if he said something, you knew he meant it. But he wasn't going to push you about it.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Joe Prather, heck of a nice fellow. Little bit on the long side, uh, little more aggressive, that sort of thing, that's the only difference I could make in them. I've, I've said a number of times, Eck Rose, uh, has one of the best, I guess the word ----------(??) the best brains of anybody I've known. I mean, he was, he was just a good thinker.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: You know, put something to him. Let him think about it a while, and he, he had a knack of getting, getting right to the heart of it 01:46:00right quick, instead of talking around all over the place, and doing nothing. And I, I admired him for that and still do.

MOYEN: Now, when, when he moved into his position as president pro temp, and you were assistant, Wallace Wilkinson was then elected Governor. And that really changed the tone of the gubernatorial relationship with the Senate, didn't it? Would that be correct? Is that?

BERGER: Yeah, yeah, that'd be correct.

MOYEN: Why, why was that?

BERGER: Well, it was real simple. We got together early. And we said, at that time the constitution had to be changed to, to let Wilkinson run for reelection. And we came up with the idea that that wasn't going to happen. And there was going to be a se--uh, a committee that 01:47:00that bill would be sent to. And Nelson Allen, if you remember that name, he called it the "Wide 76" or something like that, some football term. I've forgotten what it was. Was was wide, full or wide five or something. And there were, there were like five Democrats on there that absolutely were against succession. And, uh, it wasn't going to come out of that committee, no matter what nobody else did. The Governor or anybody else. Who was Wilkinson's big buddy that's made all the money?

MOYEN: Carville?

BERGER: No.

MOYEN: Or the --

BERGER: --no, thee--

JOYCE: Danny ---------(??)

BERGER: Who?

JOYCE: Dan ----------(??)

BERGER: No, not Danny ----------(??), not political. A fellow that was--

JOYCE: --Marlow---------(??)

BERGER: O'Brian (??)

JOYCE: Brian

BERGER: Oh, shoot, you, you know, what I'm think about him, he's made a lot of money in different things. One thing, he sold a lot of the 01:48:00equipment to the lottery board. ----------(??) We can talk about. Anyway, I mean, he, he came to us almost on his knees for Wilkinson to pass it, and I said nothing. And the rest of them said pretty much nothing. But we knew where we were, and that bill wasn't coming out of committee. Now, later on it, it turned out to be right, but you know, I mean I felt like that just like I did the sheriff's, when the sheriff's constitution, or whatever was changed, to let sheriffs succeed themselves.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: If it's the right kind of person, it's the greatest thing that ever happened; if it's the wrong person, it's the worst that ever happened. And I wasn't willing to take the chance. I said, "Let them serve for four years and turn them out to pasture. If they want to come back four years later and run again, that's fine."

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: But now Wilkinson, he, uh, whether he's your brother-in-law or 01:49:00kin-folks, he was not well liked at all. He just really wasn't. And I mean people felt uncomfortable around him. He'd been in too many different things, or whatever, now but he wasn't going to, he wasn't going to be elected no second time that go round. (Moyen laughs) That, that was just that way. There wasn't a lot of talk about it. We just didn't talk about it a lot. Um, this fellow I'm trying to think of his name, gosh, it was like two or three days before the, uh, before the, the, uh, session ended, and the House had already indicated they were for it. But we knew two months before that that wasn't going to happen. Because once, this was a new committee, and, and people should have been suspicious right then. (laughs) But that's the way that one worked.

MOYEN: Now, would you say succession issue was the primary reason for 01:50:00tension between the Senate and Wilkinson?

BERGER: No. No, I wouldn't, because it seemed like there was a lot of things. And I don't remember personally being involved, except--yeah, I do remember (??) personally being involved. The ----------(??) early for mid-way session, uh, the word was out pretty clear that, uh, John Jones, or somebody was going to run against, uh, against Joe Wright. And I told a couple of the other senators, and I didn't know whether they was going to go with me, I just told them, I said, "I'm going down to talk to Governor Wilkinson." and I said, "I may do all the talking, or I may do all the listening; I'll tell you when I get back." But there were about three that followed me. And you know, came in the door behind me and I didn't know it. And I really hadn't talked with 01:51:00Wilkinson that much, but I just told him, I said, "Governor, uh, we've got a situation here: you've got the majority floor leader, you're trying to get some things accomplished, and now the word's out that you have finally found an opponent to run against Joe Wright." And I said, "There ain't nothing going to happen as long as it stays like that." And two days later that fellow withdrew; he didn't run. But, uh, to Wilkinson's credit, I think he, he took me at heart that it was true, and it was true. Because, uh, Joe Wright was extremely well- liked. And, uh, and Wilkinson kind of showed his judgment, you know, trying to get someone ---------(??) fellow out here to run against the majority floor leader that everybody liked. (laughs)

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: It just wasn't going to work. If he wanted to get anything 01:52:00else--now, you might say, "Well, in the end you all should have passed succession." But I was against succession before I ever heard of Joe Wright, so it didn't, that didn't make sense either. (both laugh)

MOYEN: And I believe he did that with a number of other candidates or, uh, other senators as well. Mike Moloney and Eck Rose, I think.

BERGER: I think that's probably right, yeah.

MOYEN: Even--well, it was after Wilkinson's election, but while he was the Governor elect, there was a special session on workers' comp. And, um, when, and you had mentioned this earlier, with all the Senate leadership, or I guess all the Senate leaders except you publicly supported this special session for workers' comp. And I couldn't find anything that said you were opposed to it, but you actually called a meeting, I think, and ----------(??)

BERGER: Who, who was Governor?

MOYEN: Well, Wallace Wilkinson was the Governor-elect. So, Martha Layne 01:53:00Collins was, was still Governor.

BERGER: Okay.

MOYEN: And, I think you called a meeting to try and discuss--

BERGER: --yeah.

MOYEN: Do you recall that?

BERGER: I think I do. If we're talking about the same thing, I do. And I could say that's about as close to me being political as one can be. Because I knew people up here would not be for that.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: They would not be. Now, later on it's, it's turned out, the way things have changed, it has been changed. But at that time, they certainly were not ready for it.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And I was sitting asking Martha Layne Collins for a day or two to draft a bill, for example, that would include farmers. Hell, I ain't got ----------(??) against farmers. But I'd throw them in the basket, too(??) and let them pay workers' comp. (laughs) So, the benefits we already had. I think that's what you're talking about.

MOYEN: Right. And, and you did have an amendment that I think did fail, 01:54:00but trying to include farm workers.

BERGER: That's, you're right.

MOYEN: That's it.

BERGER: (laughs) Yeah, I remember getting some figures together as to, uh, how, what the premium would be, and how much money we'd raise if farmers, which are not presently covered, if they were in fact forced, uh, to be covered in workers' comp. But, as I say, and I don't mind telling you that, that was pretty much political on my part. Not that it wasn't, wasn't a great thing, of course.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Uh, another issue that Wallace Wilkinson raised, and how he said he wasn't going to raise taxes was the lottery. That he was going to bring in the lottery. Do you recall if you supported the lottery?

BERGER: Excuse me again.

MOYEN: No problem.

[Pause in recording.]

BERGER: The lottery and(??) Wilkinson.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Um, do you recall if you supported the lottery?

BERGER: I recall that I did not support it.

MOYEN: Okay. Why was that?

BERGER: Um, because I didn't go to church often enough. (both laugh) I guess. (laughs)

JOYCE: He was getting lobbied at home.

BERGER: (laughs) No, uh, it just had to do with gambling.

MOYEN: Right.

BERGER: Uh, not that I don't gamble, but I don't want you to. (laughs) It's that sort of, sort of thing. And, and, and the Wilkinson part of it didn't help any at all. I mean, we're saying, "My gosh, there's something wrong here."

MOYEN: Um-hm. This may or may not've been a factor, I don't know, but Harlan County does border Virginia, correct?

BERGER: Right.

MOYEN: Did Virginia have the lottery? I have no idea.

BERGER: You know, Tennessee just recently passed one.

JOYCE: I, I, I don't think, I don't think--

BERGER: --I don't believe Virginia had one.

JOYCE: I really don't know. They might. I don't know.

MOYEN: Okay. I didn't know if that would have been an economic issue in your campaign, when(??) saying, "Well, look at the money we lose, people ," you know.

BERGER: Yeah. No, it, it wouldn't have been much here, particularly, because of what Bowling Green. And where are the casinos in Kentucky, I've forgotten.

MOYEN: A lot of them along the rivers, and.

BERGER: Yeah. And that's a long way from us.

MOYEN: Right.

BERGER: So that may not have been much talked about. Or I just, I just wasn't for the lottery.

MOYEN: Right.

BERGER: But the--the biggest thing about the, uh, lottery was people right today will tell you that Wilkinson promised that all of the money would go to education. Well, he did not. In fact, we came that close in the Senate to adding an amendment to say that, uh, that it would 01:57:00be a felony to, uh, to designate where the money went. We wanted the money to go to the general fund.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And the main reason for it was it, Massachusetts or somebody, had had a lottery for three or four years, and it was designated to go to a particular fund, and they were overflowing with money and couldn't spend it. Because it was designated money, see.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And that impressed me, because he, whether it went to teachers or anything else, I said, "My gosh, if we really have good times, here's all this money and we can't spend it. Well, what's it going to help?"

MOYEN: Right. Um-hm. And, and if I recall, did Wilkinson not come out and say either in press conferences or whatever, that he had wanted all the money for the lottery money to go for education, but because of the 01:58:00senators, kind of making it sound as if it had gone into, almost like some sort of a slush fund, or, or?

BERGER: Now, I don't remember that. I really don't remember anything like that. I, I doubt if he wouldn't have, because he was trying to stay on good terms.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: I, I kind of doubt if he would've said that, but now he may have, if you've read it or whatever. But, uh, for those people who say that he promised it would go to education, now they're just wrong. And I've taken that up on a number of times on that.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: I said, "That's wrong; you all you go read the bill and see where the money goes." (both laugh)

MOYEN: Now, of course the other big issue during Wilkinson's tenure as Governor is KERA and how KERA developed. -----------(??) Obviously, there were a bunch of issues, but probably one of the biggest. Um, in 1989, you were assigned to an education task force. Uh, I believe you 01:59:00served on that with Mike Moloney and Pat McCuiston and Art Schmidt. Do you recall anything about that task force and what, uh, what your goals were or if it was just seeing if that was essentially what the beginnings of what would become KERA, looking at the education program?

BERGER: Whew. You, you don't have any background, I mean, what it was supposed to be or anything?

MOYEN: Uh, no.

BERGER: It wasn't part of KERA, was it? The beginning of KERA?

MOYEN: I think it was the beginnings of KERA.

BERGER: Well, those names don't go right(??) with it, because it was the Governor--governance committee on KERA that we got into all this local politics with teachers and all that stuff.

MOYEN: The nepotism--

BERGER: --the nepotism part. But now, Schmidt and, uh, McCuiston wouldn't've been there, and I don't believe Mike was either.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: But it was me, Walter Baker, Joe Wright, who else, Joyce? Uh, Kenny Rapier, who died recently. That's about it, too. There was about six of us, five, something like that. Because we were sneaking up back, backroads, and sewer lines, and everything else to have public meetings. (both laugh)

MOYEN: Now, you mentioned serving on governance. Am I correct, in this that I think that there was governance, curriculum, and finance. Were those?

BERGER: You're probably right. You've probably looked recently as far as, I can't remember if there was three or four. But I know it started out, the first time it was announced, and, and, uh, evidently Eck had just done it by himself, and he had me on--I forget, some curriculum. 02:01:00And I called ----------(??) and I said, "I don't want to be on no curriculum." I said, "I want to be where I can get something done that nobody has to know about it." So the next day, they changed it over and put me on governance. And of course, what it was and one or two of them, they were afraid that because I was from Harlan, and Harlan had such a bad reputation, that I would be for leaving it the way it is.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: But that wasn't the case.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And we didn't, we did a whole lot of changing on that.

MOYEN: Let me ask you about that. You mentioned Harlan's reputation with the nepotism and Eastern Kentucky in general. Was that a legitimate complaint? Was that a, a bad problem here, people getting appointed because of their family members on different school boards or positions? When you investigated that, was that?

BERGER: I didn't have to investigate it; I was raised with it.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And it was right. What you said is right.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: As far as I was--there's some awful good teachers. But, uh, the example I'm always given is a father has a daughter just graduated from Eastern. He goes to the school superintendent, says, "Now, she's really not worth a damn, but she needs a job. So, let's hire her." And we hire her. And who suffers are the kids.

MOYEN: Right.

BERGER: (laughs) So, so there wasn't any question in my mind. And we, we came that close again to adding an amendment to KERA to say that it would be a felony for a school board member to even talk to a superintendent about hiring somebody. Now, of course all this business and what's this ----------(??) about, Joyce? Uh.

JOYCE: School-base--site-base council.

BERGER: Site-base council, that I'd been hearing a lot of talk about, and I, I don't know the truth of it. Didn't matter about, about that part of it, but, uh, we, we were jus, we just knew what had happened over the years with the superintendents. I mean but two or three board members, or one board member go to it. That's a heck of a threat, because they say, "Hey, board member, we're the ones that put you where you are, and we can take you away, too."

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: So there was, there was a lot to be done with that. And I'm sure still, still yet to be done.

MOYEN: Did you vote for KERA?

BERGER: Yeah.

MOYEN: Did you take much heat for that, from any groups?

BERGER: No.

MOYEN: In retrospect, do you feel like it's done a great deal of good?

BERGER: Truthfully, I can't say. I'm not an educator. There's so much 02:04:00about education that I don't understand, and I don't think I want to understand. (laughs) But that, that one part of it, the gov-, the governance(??) is the part I felt like I knew about it. And if you'll remember, guess what was the first county to be taken over by the state after KERA passed. If you remember all that. Joyce remembers all of it. (laughs) Our superintendent was gone, the state took over. Roger and I were chairman of the education committee. The House has beaten. I mean, they did it all. (both laugh)

MOYEN: Uh, something that you may know, or you definitely may know more about than the education stuff, in 1991--and maybe this one will sound more familiar--you co-chaired a task force that dealt with sending tax revenue back--

BERGER: -- ------------(??)--

MOYEN: --coal tax revenue back to coal counties. Do you recall anything about that?

BERGER: Yeah, I recall anything about it, but not, not a lot. I think, if, if I'm not mistaken, I probably was chairman of that committee.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: It was an interim committee--one not held during the session.

MOYEN: Right.

BERGER: Greg Stumbo was on it. A bunch of other coal people, but to me, it was a little bit like so many other committees. Uh, you get into a problem(??). Say, "Well, we just can't work it out, so let's form a committee to study it for a while." And now we, we did quite a bit of work. I remember at least one meeting in Lexington that we had, some motel down there. And we did a lot, we did a lot of work on it, and as I recall wound up just asking for more money and so forth, which is like a 50 percent now, I think. But as far as anything positive coming 02:06:00out of that committee, I don't remember that.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: Except, uh--

MOYEN: --I think that a report was issued in October that hoped that the legislature would increase the percentage by 50 percent, but then in the '92 session, times were tough again. It was recession times again and it didn't happen.

BERGER: That sounds about right.

MOYEN: Okay. Um, by this time you had been serving over a decade and would continue to serve for a few more years. Could you tell me--you had mentioned before about how your districts changed. Were those, if they changed as many times as you said, they didn't just change after a census.

BERGER: Yeah--

MOYEN: --did they--

BERGER: --they did after a census, but the only thing, you have to have more time involved than just saying the census ended January first, and 02:07:00we did redistricting January second. It took a lot longer to do that. So, let me, let me see if I--where are you, Joyce? Help me with this. Harlan, Bell, and Whitley County, all except the city of Corbin. The second go-round was Harlan, Bell--

JOYCE: --two counties. Two--

BERGER: --two or three counties in Perry--

JOYCE: --precincts in Perry County.

BERGER: Precincts, right. ----------(??)

JOYCE: ----------(??)

BERGER: Letcher?

JOYCE: It was Letcher. Letcher and two or three precincts in Perry.

BERGER: That's right. So, so, that, that was the second go-round. The third go, go-round was, it was Harlan and Bell and Perry. I guess that was it, Harlan, Bell, and Perry. Because the, the problem was Knox 02:08:00County would have been the other county.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Knox is heavy Republican. And this, this ain't hero talk. But I, I just said to myself, "Look, it may not be me, but at least it needs to be another Democrat." And Perry County is heavy Democrat; Knox is heavy Republican. Now, I already know about Harlan and Bell, so I'm going to be for Perry County, and that's exactly what we did. And that's exactly--not exactly why I lost, but that's the election I lost. But it was changed from that.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: But it normalizing(??) and so forth, it should've been the Democrat in those, in those counties, whereas with, with Knox being a Republican county, it would've been close from day one.

MOYEN: Um-hm. So do you feel like that, uh, redistricting was one of 02:09:00the primary reasons that you did lose when you did?

BERGER: Well, I've thought about that a lot, about people ask me about it, and I've always said, uh, the best, best and first answer is to say you had an opponent who did better than you did. He got more votes. And to not say anything bad about it, not blame it on that, but a little, a little part of it is that, uh, of course, Joyce was a secretary at the time. We were still in Pineville. And, uh, I had just picked up a couple of clients that really, really kept me busy, during getting ready, getting into the campaign. And I'm saying, hey, I've got to do one of two things: I've got to either try to, I'm going to have to put in more money or do less campaigning. I can't, I can't 02:10:00campaign like I know I need to do, and take care of these clients. And I better take care of my clients first. So that's what I did. I put in a little bit more money than I, than I would have ordinarily. And anyway I lost. I, I give all the credit to him. I don't, I don't fault him for it; he's a good candidate.

JOYCE BERGER: He's, he's a worker.

BERGER: He's really a good, good candidate.

MOYEN: Um-hm. And, and who was it?

BERGER: Glenn Freeman.

MOYEN: He's ----------(??) got beaten by 2300 votes.

BERGER: Yeah.

MOYEN: Have, have you all been able to stay on pretty good terms, even though?

BERGER: We just haven't run into each other.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: So I don't, I'm, I'm making up my mind between whether to burn his House or shoot his dog. (both laugh) I don't know it'll be ------- 02:11:00---(??) No, I'm kidding.

JOYCE: The big question was whether he lived in the district or not.

BERGER: He--

JOYCE: --because he actually lived in Corbin at the time.

BERGER: For a long time (??).

JOYCE BERGER: He had a house there.

BERGER: Everybody knew that. But I didn't campaign on that, you know, I didn't make an issue out of that, and I thought--

JOYCE: --he owned a home in, in Cumberland, but he lived in Corbin.

MOYEN: Okay. Um-hm.

JOYCE: So that's the way it goes.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

[Pause in recording.]

MOYEN: Uh, let's talk a little bit about, um, Brereton Jo--or your time in the Senate when Brereton Jones was Governor. Uh, two big issues, one being BOPTROT. Uh, do you recall what your feelings were when that whole thing broke towards the end of the session? And, and what were your thoughts?

BERGER: Well, it's kind of strange, and it's hard probably for people to believe but as you say, I was there. I was there in leadership. Uh, 02:12:00one day, one afternoon, kind of late, I walked out of my office and just saw David Karem not far from me, up the hall. I said, "Hey, how are you doing?" He said, he said, "All right." Said, "the FBI just came in here and seized all my books and papers," and I said, "The who?" He said, "The FBI." I said, "What's going on?" He said, "I don't know." So, what I'm saying is, I never even heard it mentioned from any other legislator that something like this was on the verge of happening.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: It just happened. And I mean it happened big time. But, of course like Art Schmidt, you said you did one on him, and as I recall, Art probably got off better than anybody. I mean, and, and there, I don't remember all the details, but most everybody there felt like Schmidt was really a fine person.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And that, uh, whatever it was that happened, uh, that, that he must not have been as involved as they, as they first thought.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: But, uh, my feelings were, I, I just can't believe it. Now, there, there was a personality or two or three involved that I have to say I wasn't shocked. But I wouldn't be shocked if a hurricane went through and one of our cars disappeared. (both laugh) But other than that, uh, I just really had a hard time getting along with that. I just couldn't believe it. I still don't know what happened. I, I just take whatever the court says, and suits me all right, I reckon. But it, it really did, uh--(laughs)-- ----------(??) It was bad.

MOYEN: Looking back on that, could you see an instances where, you know, at the time maybe you didn't, didn't see it, but looking back, once it 02:14:00all happens--where you, where you mentioned you weren't surprised, but looking back can you say, "Oh, now, now I think I know what was going on here after the fact." Or, or would you have never suspected anything like that at all.

BERGER: The only thing I can think of--and now this is beside the point of not naming names--would be one person who had the reputation of going to the race track almost every day when, when they were run. And betting big sums of money, but, but everybody knew, or thought that he had money anyway. Not that he got it illegally, but that he would go to the racetrack, he'd bet ten thousand as quick as I'd be a quarter. Now I'd say(??) hell, that's something, something else. But that's 02:15:00none of my business; his money, he can do what he wants to with it. But I never suspected that fellow of being involved in anything or, or anybody else. They were just, just regular, regular people. And, uh, you know, I might have missed some of it--well, I'm sure I missed some of it, because, uh, down at the Holiday Inn, for example, all the people gathered in there and all that, and I didn't do much of that. I just, I just didn't. Me and Joe Wright, two or three of us, we'd go eat, and stay out until ten or eleven o'clock, come home and go to bed. It was just like any other workday. (laughs) So, I, I, it really did bother me because naturally I felt like it was a reflection on me. I mean, just a bunch of outlaws out there, you know, getting the taxpayer's money, so I can't help it. (both laugh)

MOYEN: Um-hm. Did you face any of that here in any newspapers or anything, where the feeling was like people were placing you with everyone else. You're just, you know, one of those--

BERGER: --no, I, I really never did. Uh, one fellow, I guess, it's just because somebody, if somebody says something good about you, you remember it. I remember one fellow saying, "Well, one thing about it is, Charlie Berger never did embarrass us." You know, that, that made me feel good.

MOYEN: Um-hm, um-hm. Let me ask you about health care reform. Do you recall much of the debate surrounding health care issues at all?

BERGER: I really don't. Now, if you ask me something specific, I might be able to comment on it, but off-hand, I mean, health care was one that I kind of stayed away from because I didn't understand it. Uh, 02:17:00now, in that connection, Benny Ray Bailey, who you haven't interviewed, and I don't know how much you know about Benny Ray, but of course Benny Ray's been into medical business for a long time. He's one of my closest friends, or one, or one of them. We were elected at the same time. And usually on medical issues, I would go to Benny Ray and ask him, I'd say, "Now, you, you level with me now, don't get me in trouble. Is this good or bad?" And it didn't bother him. He'd say, "You don't want to be for that." "That," he said, "that'll turn out to be bad." And, and a good deal of the time, I'd go along with, with what he was saying. Because, I mean, if you can't listen to somebody that's smart, you ain't smart.

MOYEN: Right. (Berger laughs) Let me ask you about an article I've read from 1992. It was talking about how much people were paying for their staffs. I, I believe Don Blandford had twelve staffers in his office, 02:18:00and some others had a number of staff members. The article mentioned that you were the only person in leadership who didn't have staff. Why was that?

BERGER: Well, that's, well, that's a funny story, I'll tell it to you. I, I just about got in trouble over that with either two or three ladies that worked there in office. See, Eck's office was here, and mine joined him, and there were doors in between, and they stayed open all the time. And there were either two or three--and I've forgotten their names off hand--ladies that worked there and did a good job. Answered, you know, answered the phone and all of that. But when some reporter asked me about that, and I said what you just read, or whatever, uh, those girls, I think their feelings were hurt. And, and they, they kind of got after me about it. And, and I half-way 02:19:00apologized, if you can, but the truth of the matter was, Eck, as far as I'm concerned did it--nobody ever told me who did it--but the girls said, "We were always on your staff. You just didn't know it." Well, you can imagine how much work I got out of a staff I didn't know I had. (both laugh) I said, I got, I got in a little bit of trouble over that. Maybe that's good trouble to get in. But, uh, they were fine ladies, and did a good job, still are. We just had a misunderstanding, and when, when that reporter, who were, stopped me in the hall, or wherever it was to ask me, I said, "No, I don't have no staff. How could I pay for when I never hired them?" (both laugh) So, so that's what, that's ----------(??) at.

MOYEN: Okay. All right. I would think if, if anyone read that here, that that might actually, people might think, 'Hey, that's not bad. 02:20:00Someone who's just going up there.'

BERGER: You'd think so. But you know what? You're talking about a thinking person, and nobody ----------(??) what your politics are. Democrats don't think; we just go vote. If they'd have thought about it, you're exactly right, but they don't want to think about it. (both laugh) I ----------(??), can't you imagine where a staunch Republican would appreciate just what we've said, much more than some ---------- (??) Democrat out here that didn't care one way or the other. I mean, I don't necessarily like it, but I think that's the truth.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Let me ask you, in '92 also, uh, things changed around a bit where the, um, president pro temp became president of the Senate. You became president pro temp.

BERGER: Right.

MOYEN: Is that a change in name only, or, or did your responsibilities 02:21:00actually change?

BERGER: I think it's correct to say in name only, but the only difference I can think of off-hand is that the Lieutenant Governor no longer presided over the Senate, but Eck did.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And then I took just a step up, same, same thing. Uh, that's all, that's all I can remember--in fact, I remember a fellow that happened, me and Eck, somebody else talking to, uh, uh, the attorney general, what's his name, Joyce? Attorney general, uh, Steve Beshear. Talking to him about it, and he was all for it, and he said, "Heck, you know, I'm just, just a piece of clay sitting up there ruling on whatever you all do." And he said, "I certainly don't think I'll oppose to changing it." So that's what we did.

MOYEN: Certainly in Kentucky, regionalism plays into politics to some 02:22:00extent. Eastern Kentucky caucus, or, you know, groups of people from coal counties, or whatever. When, when Paul Patton was elected, did you feel like that was a, a great thing for Eastern Kentucky? Or, not necessarily, just ----------(??)

BERGER: I guess, offhand, uh, the first day or two, I would've felt like this good for Eastern Kentucky. I believe I would've had to do that. Three or four days later, as I recall, or two weeks later, we go to--I believe it was on a Sunday, and we went to the old, old Governor's mansion and had lunch with Patton. I think it was just the Democrat leadership. And he announced to us about five or six people that he had already. he had named, but not made public, as the heads of--and 02:23:00about 90 percent of them, or something like that, were all Republican. And I'm thinking, This is a new way to do business, you know. I don't know about that. (laughs) Of course, I, I give him all the credit and say, well, he was trying to show the world that he was going to be fair and, and include everybody. But I said he's got more nerve than I've got to do it. (both laughs) So, but, but otherwise I would've, I would've felt like all that Paul Patton (??)--because he'd been involved in the coal business for sure, big time.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And, uh, seemed to get along fine with that, so I would've thought--but, but that's why he understood workers' comp, too. And he did some things, you know, that people got mad over that, he trying to straighten it back up again. But, but to answer your question, yeah, I felt like he would be a big asset to Eastern Kentucky.

MOYEN: Um, when you were defeated in the primary, were there, were there parts of you that were relieved at all?

BERGER: Yeah, yeah. Parts. Be hard to say exactly what parts, but-- well, for example, you, you pick up the phone, and somebody invites you next week on a Tuesday to the cub scout meeting at Whitesburg. You go to Whitesburg, you get there, and when the meeting finally started, there's three people: two cub leaders and one cub scout, you think, God, what am I doing--how did I get into this? And there's stuff like that all the time.

JOYCE: Every, every school, every elementary school, every high school, every middle school in those three counties are calling (??)--

BERGER: --oh, it's bad--

JOYCE: --money for soccer teams, things--

BERGER: --that's really bad. Uh, they ought to outlaw that some way or another. (laughs) Whether it's me or somebody else, but, you know, you, school contacts, you--or even a football team, or a basketball team, they want fifty or a hundred dollars, man, that amounts up to in a hurry.

JOYCE: Every volunteer fire department.

BERGER: And, and you feel like, Well, if I don't do it, they're going to be mad at me. So, you go ahead and do it. But that's, that's the part now that, uh, you would feel relieved about. Uh, now, overall you'd just say "Well, good, let somebody else solve these problems now a while." You know, say it in a nice way.

MOYEN: Right. Um-hm.

JOYCE: Go back to eating dinner without the phone ringing.

BERGER: Yeah, boy, that was another thing. That always happens. (both laugh)

MOYEN: Uh, here's a question. Did you have caller ID by this, any time 02:26:00you were still in?

JOYCE BERGER: No.

BERGER: We didn't have it then.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: That was ------------(??).

MOYEN: ----------(??)

JOYCE: We've only had that about two years.

BERGER: Yeah.

JOYCE: Something like that(??).

MOYEN: That could've been helpful(??).

BERGER: Yeah. Been helpful.

JOYCE BERGER: It would've been wonderful.

BERGER: Yeah, hadn't thought about that.

MOYEN: Uh, what would you say overall looking back at your time in office, how has Harlan County changed, or has it changed, in the twenty-three years since you began serving?

BERGER: Well, of course, first would be population. I don't know all the figures, but it's my understanding that our population is decreasing considerably, hasn't it, Joyce?

JOYCE: More than anybody else's.

BERGER: It's pretty big time.

JOYCE: Fourteen---------(??).

BERGER: Uh, other than that, we've--we've lost a number--again, I don't 02:27:00know the number, but a number of mining jobs, and these are good paid jobs I'm talking about. You know, good money for, for, for labor people. Um, this is off the subject in a way, but trash on our highway has gotten better. We've improved a little bit. Whoever gets credit for it, that's fine. That's just one little thing, but it's, it's, that's good. It really has. And, uh, and yet two or three things up there at Cumberland that, uh, really haven't improved a lot yet one way or the other, that may be good or bad, maybe you've heard of the Benham Schoolhouse is more like a bed and breakfast?

JOYCE: Benham Schoolhouse ----------(??)

BERGER: In the old schoolhouse, they're doing the same thing to a theatre. Everybody in this world is going to attract tourists. But 02:28:00we're, they going to, that's what I--no kidding, that, you know, every little one village has got to have a state park. Because if you ain't got a state park, you ain't nothing. (both laugh) You know, but we -- --------(??) tourists here, we can't keep up with them. But other than that, it, it had to be sort of general. Otherwise it's, it's Harlan.

MOYEN: How would you, how would you stop that population drain? Is there, is there any way to stop that or is it in a cycle where it just seems like?

JOYCE: Without the coal, I think tourism--just what he's talking about-- is the only thing we do have. It might work into something.

BERGER: I, you know, I don't disagree, but I'm, I'm afraid that sometimes we just simply get, some people get to talking about something, and others of us just pick it up, and we keep talking the same thing, and 02:29:00nothing has changed. You take a coal miner making $80-90 an hour, and let him start cleaning the commode in a, in a, uh, motel. See how that goes over. That'll get your tourism in here. No kidding, that's, it's pretty rough. Of course, in the mean--your, your concern is the drug problem. We ain't mentioned, if I don't want to mention it, part. But, uh, it's bound to be terrible, this OxyContin and all this, from the stories that we hear, and all that. Makes you wonder if you wind up here in a few years with nothing but back to where we were -------- --(??), pure(??) outlaws. And I'm, I'm not suggesting we will, but, uh, it makes you wonder about it. Because, you know, it seems to me we've got a, uh, a population up here of all old, older people, us.

JOYCE: That's right.

BERGER: And down here at the bottom, you've got a population of people, of very young, and in the middle, you've got nothing. So, what, what happens to that? I mean, these older people, they're going to be gone before too long. Ain't nobody to take their place. And I don't know how long you can wait for the youngsters to get up to working age and be educated and all that.

MOYEN: Um-hm. What is, what would you consider the best and worst parts of serving in the Senate? Being in public office?

BERGER: Oh, I could write a book on that. I guess, but I'd say maybe the best part would be the, uh, the nice people that I met, and people that I was impressed with. Uh, I think I learned a good bit. I think, I hope it made me a better citizen. Uh, the worst part of it would be 02:31:00what we was talking about earlier, the, uh, you'd get a lot of calls from people that are, are ----------(??), things there's nothing you can do, but they don't understand, and they're just as mad as if they did understand. (laughs)

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: So that, both, both ends of the spectrum, that's be about it.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: But I, I enjoyed it really. Um, and, uh, it was, it was nice to just to sit and, and mingle with, uh, especially a number of people that I could, could name, to talk about different problems and all, and know that they were sincere, and they meant it (??) and, and had a good feel for what they were doing. That was--

JOYCE: ----------(??)

BERGER: Yeah, man, that was, that was nice, as opposed to going to Frankfort and decide you're going to change everything.

MOYEN: Right. In, in retrospect, what would you consider your best and your worst votes?

BERGER: Whew.

MOYEN: Was there anything that you can say, "Yeah, I'm very proud of this. This was a good vote, and it may have been hard," or may not have been hard, because you knew 100 percent this is the right thing to do. And on the flip side were there any votes where you knew at the time going in, 'I don't know if I like this, but if I want to keep my seat,' or, you know, maybe, 'I thought this was good, but now looking back, I don't think.'

BERGER: Yeah.

MOYEN: Is there anything that comes to mind?

BERGER: That, that really is, is just hard to say. I'm, I'm afraid that whatever I said right now, an hour later or a week later I would say, well, that was totally wrong.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: I just, I don't recall any, be good or bad, things that really 02:33:00upset me.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: I mean, I believe I got along pretty level.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: There were some people that seemed to have terrible ups and terrible downs. And I tried to keep it kind of level.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Best I could, if ----------(??) (both laugh)

MOYEN: Can you tell me a little bit more, or maybe you've said it all, there's a Herald-Leader article about how, um, your wife would pack your different outfits for you, so you didn't have to worry about that, and how while these other people stayed at the Holiday Inn, you stayed out, uh, at a different hotel.

BERGER: Yeah.

MOYEN: Um, and, and I guess the, the gist of the article was you're being a simple man, essentially.

BERGER: Yeah.

MOYEN: Um, did that play into your politics at all?

BERGER: It might have. You know, truthfully, there probably have been more people that have mentioned that article to me over the years than 02:34:00any other issue. And that tells you a lot about people.

MOYEN: It may have played into his politics. It's still going on. (all laugh)

JOYCE: It was going on before, it's going on now.

BERGER: (laughs) She, she was always afraid I'd go to the theatre looking like a, like a clown from the carnival. (laughs)

JOYCE: Well, once, I would fix his things and line them up, and he got them out of line, and he came in on Friday afternoon in the office, and I thought, Oh no. (all laugh) So from then on I took bread ties, and I tied his suits and his shirts and the tie on it, the socks in the pocket, the belt on it, whatever, and tied it up so it wouldn't get messed up. (laughs)

BERGER: What's wrong with that? We're probably, it's a long time, but about, you know, the last year or two.

JOYCE: I do it now. He doesn't buy any clothes for himself. He doesn't 02:35:00pick out anything to wear, anytime.

MOYEN: Um, um, is there any, or are there any stories that you can think of that, um, no one's ever going to get reading the Courier-Journal, or reading the Herald-Leader or anything, but stories that you think of that are particularly funny, or, um, or just wild stories that, um, of things that have happened that would just be an, that would be enlightening.

BERGER: I really can't. I really can't. If I thought about that one for a while it would come to me, but just off-hand I can't. Um, an awful lot of that work down there was pretty serious.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: Pretty serious.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And I just don't, don't remember that much happening.

MOYEN: Did you deal with any issues that other parts of the state would say that's peculiar for this region, like things like cockfighting, or, um, snake-handling, or stuff like that, did any of that stuff ever come up in the legislature at all?

BERGER: You mean, you mean come up as a bill?

MOYEN: Like an issue.

BERGER: As an issue. Well, I believe the snake-handling thing down there in Knox County came up. I don't think it even came up; it was talked about because the woman died. Now, as far as cockfighting's concerned, that's not confined to Eastern Kentucky--

MOYEN: --right--

BERGER: --in any manner. It's all over Kentucky and it's all over this country. And, uh, if people, if they don't agree with it, I, I can 02:37:00understand that. There's a lot of things I don't agree with either. But, um, that, that was discussed a time or two.

MOYEN: And, um, was that in any way, did you feel like people looked down on you, or, ir in Frankfort, you know, it seems like people--I told you earlier about how if I go visit with my family in Massachusetts, it's obvious they look down on me because I'm from Kentucky, you know. Did you ever get that feeling being from Harlan County? In Kentucky, did you get that feeling?

BERGER: You know, I really didn't. I'm, I'm probably kidding myself. But I, I didn't at all. And I told a number of people that. That even though, I mean, I, I know I talk funny, but hell, this is the way I learned to talk, so that's what I did. But I've never had anybody even suggest that--I have just one ---------(??) or didn't wear shoes, 02:38:00I never did have that. And, uh, but I think, I think dealing with the people, other people in leadership, particularly, I think they knew it didn't matter, uh, how I said it, it was what I said.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: It, it, no problem with that with me. But I, I can see where, where that could happen, if you, if you wanted it to. But at the same time, I wasn't about to start pronouncing words different just because I was down there in the Senate. I mean, it wasn't worth that to me.

MOYEN: Right, right. What have you done since your legislative career? Have you focused on your law practice? Have you gotten involved in other ---------(??)?

BERGER: No, I, I really, I haven't done much. I haven't done much, uh.

JOYCE: Well, we're busy, really busy for the first couple of years, 02:39:00really and then-- BERGER: But he said, I thought you said after, after the election?

JOYCE: He did, after '96, but we--

BERGER: --well, for a while, I was still in Pineville.

JOYCE BERGER: Yeah.

BERGER: We had a good bit of work to do. And I guess two years is about right. And then, then, we decided to come, to move back to Harlan, which we did. And then as I told you earlier, for the last six months or something, I've been trying to quit. I just haven't been taking on any new business. Don't plan to. So, but, as far as doing anything, I mean, I don't feel like I'm a very, I'm certainly not an activist. Um, because, I'm out here--I'm not out here stirring up stuff, and that's I guess maybe you're supposed to. But I don't, I don't feel, I'd a lot rather be out in the garden grubbing around than I had talking to a bunch of wild-eyed people about something.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Uh, let me get your thoughts and opinions on, just 02:40:00because it's, uh, November of a gubernatorial election in Kentucky. What are your thoughts on Kentucky having another Republican Governor, um, and gaining control in, in the Senate, and seeming to continue to gain control. Why do you think that is? Why is the Democratic Party having trouble in Kentucky?

BERGER: Well, I think it's pretty much because of what my wife says about it. I think us Democrats have gotten to where we're for everything that mainstream America, uh, is against. I mean, no matter what you think about it personally, when you get, when you get to talking about all this abortion stuff, and, uh, what is it? Uh, gosh, 02:41:00I can't even think the --we used to call them queers, but whatever that is now ----------(??). But I mean, my ----------(??), most people, at least around here, don't. And there are three or four other issues that all you've got to do is look at Western Kentucky, and there, there it is 3-, 4-, or 5 to 1 Democratic, and Republican's are winning. And, uh, so I don't, I don't know what you say other than that about it.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: And, and I thought the other day, I said, you know, if it, if it was my job to sit down and figure out how do you revitalize and reform the Democratic Party, I don't know where you'd start. You, we can't out-Republican the Republicans. So, which other direction is there to go in? And we can only pay so much tax. And whatever the tax is, if 02:42:00you want to give it to the, to the other people, that's fine, too. But you're probably going to run out of money.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: So we're kind of, it kind of bothers me about--I, I hardly know what to say on that, but I think, I think right now that even though we probably would win and all like that, with this thing in Iraq, there's no telling what'll happen with that. Now, you know, Bush could wake up here one morning in terrible shape. And he might wake up in the best shape he could possibly be in. So, I, I probably didn't answer your question.

MOYEN: No, no, I understand exactly what you're saying. Has your political philosophy changed at all from the time you began serving until now? In, in just a couple of sentences, how would you have 02:43:00described your political philosophy then and now? And are they the same since?

BERGER: I would describe both of them as being conservative. But there are exceptions. It must be the lawyer part of me coming out, that there's some things I can get pretty dag-gone liberal on, especially if you're dealing with, uh, people's rights, you know, victim's rights, or whatever, or due process. Uh, for example, I personally would like, like to see the, the firing and all those issues that are going on right now, I personally would like to see some of that, but as a lawyer, I'm not real sure that I'd be right. And that, that bothered me a little bit.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

JOYCE: What do you mean you'd like to see them--

BERGER: --well, I'd like--

JOYCE: ----------(??)

BERGER: No, make it even simpler. Put the Ten Commandments, you know, put the Ten Commandments down there in Alabama again. Uh, I 02:44:00personally, just me personally, I kind of like that. I don't know think I'm abiding by it, but I like it. But, as a lawyer, I, I questioned it a little bit, you know.

MOYEN: Um-hm.

BERGER: You know, I don't know. So there's a number of things like that, but overall, I'd be conservative.

MOYEN: Um-hm. Has that stayed pretty much consistent throughout your political career?

BERGER: Uh, I believe so. I think so. Yeah. It's, uh--

MOYEN: --so, for example, would you say that personally you like the idea of a constitutional amendment or a law saying you can't burn the flag, but as an attorney--

BERGER: --yeah, right. That's a good example--

MOYEN: --you don't know.

BERGER: That's a good example.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: A better example than I gave.

MOYEN: Is there anything that I've missed that you all can think of? (Berger laughs) Anything else that I--(Berger laughs)--that we should be talking about?

BERGER: No, uh, you pretty well covered it.

MOYEN: Well, thank you so much for meeting with me.

BERGER: Well, you're sure welcome.

JOYCE: Oh, we've enjoyed it.

BERGER: Hope we've helped you a little bit.

MOYEN: You've been fantastic.

BERGER: Oh, you get an A out of whatever we're doing.

MOYEN: (laughs) No grade on this.

BERGER: No grade. (laughs)

MOYEN: No grade on this. The only A I can get is at some point someone will, uh, listen to the tape, or read the transcript, and say, "That really helped me figure out something."

BERGER: Well, if you find anything in all of that that sounds, that just doesn't sound right, give me a call.

MOYEN: Okay.

BERGER: Because I could have misunderstood, or deliberately told you what--

[End of interview.]