Jul 18, 2022
Craig continues his interview with Senator Mack Mattingly (R-GA), the first Republican Senator from Georgia since Reconstruction. As discussed in Part 1, Senator Mattingly unseated a titan of Georgia politics, Herman Talmadge, and served from 1981 to 1987.
Part 2 focuses on the Senator's career both before and after the U.S. Senate. The Senator reflects on his time as Assistant Secretary of Defense at NATO, the issues facing the Western alliance in the late 1980s and the sensitive interaction of the 16 members of the defense organization. Craig and Senator Mattingly also discuss the future of NATO and the current war in the Ukraine and its implications for the United States.
Senator Mattingly then relays his time as Ambassador to the Seychelles Islands, how he had a front row seat for the formulation of their constitution and the small nation's role in the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union.
Craig and the Senator then go back to the 1960s and 1970s by
discussing how the Georgia Republican Party started and its
difficult travails during the Senator's years as party chairman in
the mid '70s. The two reflect on the 1964, 1968 and 1976
Republican national conventions and the influence of other party
leaders including Paul Coverdell and Newt Gingrich.
Senator Mattingly discloses his opinions on political movies and
what contemporary leaders he wished he had met during his
career. He also reveals what he and Walter Cronkite discussed
over a beer in Kansas City at the 1976 GOP convention!
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