Ken Towery: A lifelong patriot
Tuesday: The “Chow Dipper” survives.
Wednesday: Towery returns to Texas, starts a family, wins the Pulitzer Prize.
Thursday: Mr. Towery goes to Washington.
Friday: Back in Texas.
Ken Towery landed in Washington, D.C., in 1962 as former Senator John Tower’s press secretary. It was one of many roles as he worked in and out of the nation’s capital over a few decades – expanding his impact and influence beyond Texas.
One of his last roles during that time was as chair and board member for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) from 1981 to 1991. CPB has been in the news since President Donald Trump signed an executive order May 1 instructing CPB and other federal agencies to stop funding the Public Broadcasting Corporation (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR).
His daughter Alice Towery Gilroy – who worked with her dad on their West Texas newspapers for more than 20 years – has some idea what he would say now, based on what he told her then.
“He said, ‘Alice, cutting the funding for PBS is not going to kill Big Bird.’ A program as successful as Sesame Street will immediately be picked up by the private sector, because they can make money from it,” Gilroy recalls her father’s words – which were prophetic.
Big Bird has survived. Last week, Netflix announced it will air old and new episodes of the children’s show.
Meanwhile, NPR has sued the Trump Administration, claiming Trump’s order violates free speech and relies on authority he doesn’t have.
Towery wrote in his 1994 memoir, “The Chow Dipper,” that public broadcasting was due for an overhaul.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan appointed Towery to bring his conservative sensibilities to CPB board.
Towery’s Washington resume
1962-on: Worked for Sen. John Tower in many different jobs, eventually becoming his second-in-command.
1968: Managed Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign in Texas.
1969-1976: Deputy director for policy and plans at the United States Information Agency.
1978: Ran Tower’s reelection campaign.
1980: Spokesman for Ronald Reagan presidential campaign.
1981-1991: Chair, board member for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Towery had worked on the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign. He originally worked for George H.W. Bush in the primary. Then Ronald Reagan asked for his help, but he turned him down because he’d already promised Bush, said Gilroy. Towery considered Bush a friend because they worked together when Bush was at the CIA and Towery at the United States Information Agency.
When funding cuts for public broadcasting were discussed at that time, Towery had reasoned with his then 20-something daughter.
“I went to him. I was all upset and told him that I didn’t think they should cut funding for public broadcasting, because they do a lot of good things. I told him I liked Big Bird. I liked ‘Sesame Street’ and all the children’s programs,” Gilroy said.
Towery was a proponent of individual liberty, free of authoritarian rule.
Her father didn’t believe in censorship — people who thought differently from him should still have a chance at funding. But he thought taxpayers shouldn’t pay for art. An example he shared with Gilroy was about the right of any artist to take an easel to the Caprock and paint all day long.
“If it’s a good picture, I’ll buy it. If it’s a bad picture, I won’t. But it’s not fair for you to paint a bad picture and expect the government to pay you to do it,” she quoted her father saying.
If it’s a good picture, I’ll buy it. If it’s a bad picture, I won’t. But it’s not fair for you to paint a bad picture and expect the government to pay you to do it,
alice towery gilroy quoting her father Ken
Government contributions have become less significant to Sesame Street. The nonprofit Sesame Workshop shows government contributions are about 4 percent of its total budget.
The current administration’s efforts to end funding for public broadcasting would have a wider effect than “Sesame Street,” of course. Much local public television and radio programing receive some funding through the corporation.
Towery wrote in his memoir he initially found serving on the CPB board discouraging and considered quitting the voluntary position about six months into his first five-year term. The board, then with 15 members, was unwieldy and had many “vested interests” sitting around the table.
The board had control of its budget, but not of any programing decisions, he wrote.
Advice from a conservative Democrat, Paul Friedlander from Seattle, also on the CPB board, caused him to stay.
“Things will get better, but there will be no chance of changing things if one were not at the table … In the end I took his advice and settled in for the long haul. It was a very long haul,” Towery wrote.
Working for Sen. Tower
Tower asked Towery to join his staff in Washington, D.C., because of his knowledge of Texas politics.
Tower won the seat Lyndon Johnson vacated when he became vice president in 1960, becoming the first Republican senator elected in Texas since 1870. Tower won a special election out of a field of 72 candidates.
Tower wanted Towery on his staff as press secretary, even though Towery admitted he hadn’t voted for him.
He worked for Tower, writing speeches, fielding the press and ran two successful reelection campaigns. Towery became Tower’s second-in-command.
“He was more of a party person than myself, and I am more of a movement person than he,” Towery wrote explaining the men’s differences.
“To me, party loyalty on the part of the voter has validity only so long as political parties have loyalty to ideas and ideals and candidates reflect those ideas and ideals.”
Gilroy remembers those years in Washington, where she stayed with her parents from the time she was 8 years old until she was 18.
Read excerpt from Towery’s book “The Chow Dipper” about Tower’s 1966 reelection race against Lubbock’s Waggoner Carr.
“In truth, there was not much difference, if any, between the fundamental positions of John Tower and Waggoner Carr. Both would have to be considered as coming from the conservative side of the political spectrum, both believing in a less powerful, less instrusive, less costly federal government. Other than that the problem was very simple. There were two candidates in the race for only one Senate seat. Given the fact that both candidates were honorable men, one the now experienced incumbent and the other an experienced leader in state government, the argument essentially boiled down to two questions: Would Texas be better served by having a voice in both political in Washington, and would Tower be effective as one of those voices.”
“I was always impressed at how respected he was,” Gilroy said.
She remembers an article in a Washington, D.C., magazine ranking the top five influential movers and shakers.
“I was shocked. It said nothing got done on the Hill without (her father).”
She remembers being a young teen passing out tiny sandwiches at one of her parents’ parties.
“That was my job as a kid. I think I was in junior high. This gentleman came up to me and asked me if I knew how important my father was.”
That comment left an impression as did later comments from another member of Tower’s staff after her dad died.
“She said the office was always happy when he (Towery) was in charge of things. He was always the adult in the room. He was always the clear thinker. The clear speaker.”
Fighting communism at USIA
In 1968, Towery headed Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign in Texas.
Nixon won, despite not carrying Texas. Still, Towery’s effort earned him a job he wanted at the United States Information Agency in 1969 under Frank Shakespeare, who’d been a vice president at CBS.
USIA put him on the front lines of the Cold War.
“I was emotionally committed to the battle against communism … The world was not big enough for communism and liberty to live peacefully on the same planet,” he wrote.
The USIA promoted American values and policies abroad from 1953 to 1999. Gilroy said his USIA role suited her father.
See the other stories in our series on Ken Towery
“That’s the work he loved. That’s the work he never wanted to leave. He was in charge of disseminating any information about the United States through press and publications to people behind the Iron Curtain. This was back in the days when they had no access to outside information,” she said.
Towery led the agency’s worldwide teletype service, worldwide magazines and printing plants in Lebanon, Mexico and the Philippines. He would serve the agency for seven years as assistant director for press and publication, deputy director in charge of policy/plans and as acting director.
He left when Jimmy Carter won the presidency in 1976 and administrations changed. The Towerys moved back to Austin and he started a political consulting firm.
Gilroy remembers her father telling her about a swap of glossy magazines, between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviets would allow a certain number the publications into the country as did the Americans, both sides claiming citizens weren’t that interested in news from the other side. However, Towery told his daughter informants inside the Soviet Union witnessed regular citizens lining up to get the U.S. magazines on the day they were delivered, hungry for news from the West.
“They were all running to get a copy of the magazine,” Gilroy said.
The Cold War officially ended in 1989, the last year of President Ronald Reagan’s term. The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991.
In his book, Towery said the work of the agency, “contributed mightily to the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union as a military threat to the Western world, as well as the opening up of that society to ideas of individual liberty and freedom … I am proud to be part of that struggle.”
