he said, sonny montgomery. he said you know, he is a friend of mine. he said, did you ask the constituents from the chamber of commerce from mississippi to talk to him about whatever bill it was? i said he said i cannot directly ask them to do that. i encouraged him about the key people on the vote. i looked at him. he pointed his finger at me. he said don't you ever do that again. sonny montgomery is a friend of mine. i go to the gym with him. i have dinner with him. don't do that. i went up and told fred. fred said calm down. he will change his mind overnigove over time. he came from congress. those were his friends. it is part of his personality. don't make it personal. outside of the diplomatic entrance on the west side of the white house, they call it the stake out place for the press. and this lasted over four years. interest groups would go out for the meeting with the president. go out to the press stakeout and dump all over us. they would say these terrible things about all of our bills. i said mr. president, how long do we have to put up with

he said, sonny montgomery. i said, yes, chairman montgomery. he said you know, he is a friend of mine. i said, yes. he said, did you ask the constituents from the chamber of commerce from mississippi to talk to him about whatever bill it was? about x bill. i went, well, boyden says i can't directly ask them to do that but i sort of encouraged them and told them who key people were on that vote, and he looked at me and said, and he never did this, pointed his finger at me, you know, my blazer. he said don't you ever do that again. sonny montgomery is a friend of mine. i go to the gym with him. i have dinner with him. don't do that. i went up and told fred. fred said calm down. it will be all right. he will change his mind over time. indeed he did. he came from congress. those were his friends. it is part of his personality. which is that you don't make it personal. you don't make it confrontational. outside of the diplomatic entrance on the northwest side of the white house, they call it the stakeout place for the press? and this lasted over fou

because the days of friendship and relationships that were driven much like president bush had with sonny montgomery and others when he was in congress of the united states, those friendships had started fading away. it found itself manifest early on in jim wright's efforts to hang on as the speaker of the house of representatives. jim ultimately had to step down. now we are in the beginning of the first couple of months. there is disarray in the house of representatives. tom foley is speaker and dick gephardt is the senate leader. george mitchell created a calm demeanor in terms of dealing with you was a cagey character in terms of dealing with some of the political issues and the combination of him and dick gephardt made it difficult for us. fortunately bob dole was around which was an anchor for us at that period of time. this was going on. this distraction was going on with the nomination of john tower as secretary of defense. the bottom issue was a question that sam and others reached the conclusion that we will answer this question for you, mr. president. who will control national s

because the days of friendship and relationships that were driven much like president bush had with sonny montgomery and others when he was in congress of the united states, those friendships had started fading away. it found itself manifest early on in jim wright's efforts to hang on as the speaker of the house of representatives. jim ultimately had to step down. and soon quickly followed by tony qualo. the first couple of months. there is disarray in the house of representatives. tom foley is speaker and dick gephardt is majority leader. that is what we were looking at in the house democrats. there was somewhat of a bit of leadership stability in the senate but george mitchell, though he created a calm demeanor in terms of dealing with you was a cagey character in terms of dealing with some of the political issues and the combination of him and dick gephardt made it difficult for us. fortunately bob dole was around which was an anchor for us at that period of time. now this was going on, this distraction was going on with the nomination of john tower who was my political mentor, as secr