Bob Dole was far more than a nice guy: He was an American. An iconic American. An American who put country, goodness, and goodwill before all.
Bob Dole was far more than a nice guy: He was an American. An iconic American. An American who put country, goodness, and goodwill before all.
“I thank the Lord I’ve kept my wits, funny wits but still my wits.”
— Bob Dole, 2020
I n 1996, then–Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole adopted a slogan for about one week that succinctly summed up one of America’s great statesmen: “A Better Man for a Better America.”
He was the first and the best of the compassionate conservatives. Before pundits and pollsters drove the phrase into oblivion, a compassionate conservative was a statesman who never let his zeal or passion for the proliferation of freedom and liberty undermine a foundation of kindness, humility, and empathy.
Dole could negotiate and compromise with the best and most intransigent of them, yet would never disavow his principles for political gain. He was the hero of heroes, nearly losing his life in World War II. A poet could write a good piece about Dole’s life of hardship and triumph. Reviewing his life brings tears of pride to anyone with a patriotic heart.
Dole came from humble roots in Russell, Kan. He was born on July 22, 1923. That same year, oil was discovered west of town, igniting a small oil boom.
His childhood home, or as he affectionately and warmly referred to it, “my little home,” would be his official residence for most of his life. Other men couldn’t wait to shake off the dirt of their small hometowns, but Bob Dole was not other men. He adored Russell, Kan. Even after leaving, he made regular pilgrimages home. When he was in the mood for a “great thick steak,” locals could find him at Meridy’s Restaurant & Lounge. Though he conceded, “there are good steaks at the Hay-Adams too.”
Today, a walk down the streets of this Midwestern town is both enjoyable and instructive of Middle America. It is clean, simple, and generally well run. It is located in a very level part of Kansas. There is a small lake nearby, good for fishing and hunting waterfowl. There is a sustainable small downtown, but some of the stores are boarded up. There are plenty of churches. And livestock. And oceans of wheat. Off in the distance are grain combines and silos.
Something about the Midwest has an almost magical way of sometimes making great statesmen. Ronald Reagan and Bob Dole always liked each other. Perhaps it was because they both came from small towns in the Midwest. Perhaps it was because they both grew up poor. Perhaps it was because they both saw the world in approximately the same way. Perhaps it was because Reagan once campaigned for Dole in Kansas. Perhaps it was because they shared a mutual disdain for the wealthy, moderate Bushes. Perhaps it was because the likeable and talented Mari Will wrote for both men as a speechwriter. Perhaps because Reagan was always a sucker for war heroes. Whatever reason, they always got along.
Bob Dole’s childhood easily be mistaken for a description of a Norman Rockwell painting. His mother was gregarious, and his father was reserved. “She could cook ham and eggs for five or 50 and never drop an egg.” When Dole would get into trouble as a child, “she would do the spanking . . . quite a few, for goofing around as a kid.” Despite the spankings, they were extremely close through life.
Even when Bob Dole was in Congress, they talked almost every weekend. He remarked that, in 1983, during the tense negotiations over Social Security, his “biggest lobbyist for saving Social Security was his mother . . . who was lobbying from her home.” She would simply say to him, “Do the right thing.” That year, he and Democratic senator Pat Moynihan would reach a compromise to save the embittered program. To Dole, saving Social Security was his “happiest single memory” in public office.
Bob Dole was a star athlete in high school, playing on the Russell football team and running the 800 in track. His nights and weekends were spent behind the counter at Dawson Drug Store. He graduated high school in 1941 and was recruited to play basketball at the University of Kansas. He may have made a fine professional athlete, but like many young men, World War II would dramatically alter his life.
“When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, we . . . knew it was our destiny to answer our nation’s call,” Dole said. He joined the United States Army’s Enlisted Reserve Corps not long after the attack, earning a commission as a second lieutenant. He was eventually assigned to the Tenth Mountain Division, or as it was relayed to him, the “Ski Division.” The light-infantry unit was designed explicitly to fight in mountainous and freezing conditions. This was concerning to Dole. As the flat-plains Kansan noted, “I had never skied before.” Regardless, he undertook the assignment with determination and good humor. Poetically, he once said, “In World War II, we were all brothers on the battlefield.” He recalled GIs weeping in their foxholes the day FDR died. Going to war was not his plan — it wasn’t anyone’s — but off to war he went, because he loved his country and wanted to defend it.
Operation Grapeshot, the 1945 Allied spring offensive in Italy, was to be the final push permanently eliminate the German resistance in Italy. Lieutenant Dole and his Tenth Mountain Division were to be a key force, fighting uphill against deeply entrenched Germans.
On April 14, 1944, Lieutenant Dole was leading a company of the 85th Infantry Regiment in a battle to take Hill 913 when they found themselves engaged by heavy machine-gun fire. In an unbelievable display of courage, Dole charged and eliminated a machine-gun nest with a well-thrown grenade. After falling back into his foxhole, he saw his radioman, Corporal Ed Simms, collapse. He braved enemy fire again to pull the young man into his foxhole. But as he rose from the foxhole again, a Nazi shell exploded near him.
He later recalled seeing his parents and his “little home” flash before his eyes. When he came to, he couldn’t move his arms or his legs.
He thought his arm was shot off and indeed, it nearly was, only attached by a few ligaments. The pain almost made him pass out. Somehow, he was carried off the battlefield. His men thought he wouldn’t survive the day. They gave him a large dose of morphine and marked his forehead with a large “M” in his own blood. It was nine hours before he was finally evacuated to a field hospital.
Dole arrived at the first of many hospitals as a quadriplegic, where he was enclosed in a full-body cast for months. He was shipped back to a Kansas military hospital, one that most doctors speculated he would never leave. A chaplain was eventually called to administer Last Rites.
He was barely alive. He itched. He felt dirty. He smelled. He fought off infections that shot his temperature up to 106 degrees and beyond. His mother wept and wept again when she finally saw him, though she promised she wouldn’t.
As Shakespeare said in Sonnet 18, “So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.” But that did not stop fellow GIs from sometimes butting their cigarettes out on his body cast as he lay helpless. He once was a football star, a standout basketball player, an outstanding track-and-field competitor, but that was over now — forever. His body was shot. His only joy was cigarettes. But he still had his mind.
The little town of Russell took up a collection to send Bob Dole to Chicago for further treatment. His parents could not afford the cost. After months of being encased in a full-body cast, he emerged an emaciated and still partially paralyzed man, weighing a little over 125 pounds. While most doctors were still writing him off, a specialist orthopedist in Chicago named Hampar Kelikian was making a name for himself by helping veterans make miraculous recoveries. Though Dr. Kelikian had a grim view of Dole’s prospects, he gave the young lieutenant what no other doctor had: hope.
After seven surgeries, Dole was beginning to improve. While in recovery, he was awarded two Purple Hearts, the Bronze Star with “V” Device, and a meritorious promotion to captain. He would later, self-deprecatingly, refer to this as his “bedpan promotion,” but was still deeply honored.
He worked and worked in a tireless fashion to get back into a semblance of shape, in spite of his two arms dangling helplessly at his sides, especially his right. Eventually he regained some movement in his left arm; never his right, his affliction disguised with a pen or a piece of paper in it. And he set about getting serious about learning. He got night sweats thinking about selling pencils in a cup, a poor beggar of a man.
What people don’t realize is how determined he was to regain use of some of his body. He worked with weights for hours, alone. He crept along the streets of Russell, alone, hour after hour. But he also determined to train his mind in academics.
First, he had to finish his undergraduate work at Washburn University, with honors. Then he earned his law degree, again with honors at Washburn in 1952. Along the way he married his occupational therapist. The marriage revitalized him. He became a new man, despite the infirmities. In 1954, he welcomed his first and only child, Robin Dole, to the world. Though his marriage would end in 1972, he maintained a strong relationship with his daughter.
While he had many role models through his life, Bob Dole had one hero: Dwight D. Eisenhower. The fellow Kansan, former president, and supreme allied commander of Allied Forces was one of the most essential figures in holding together the fragile alliance between Allies in World War II. Dole recalled one of his most memorably excited moments was the day Eisenhower announced he was a Republican. Perhaps it was this, or simply a desire to continue serving his country, but Bob Dole decided his future was in public service.
Dole first ran in 1950 and served in local politics for a decade before entering the national stage. In 1960 he won his first national race and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, from Kansas’s sixth congressional district. He would win two more elections, representing Kansas’s first. He was well regarded by his peers and voted for the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as well as the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968.
For Bob Dole, a rising star in the Republican Party, a Senate run was inevitable. After Senator Frank Carlson announced his retirement, Dole defeated Former Kansas governor William H. Avery by almost 70 percent. He then overwhelmingly defeated Democratic candidate William I. Robinson and was sworn into the United States Senate.
However, before he could enact his agenda, there was something far more important he needed to attend to. Former President Eisenhower’s health was in severe decline. The 78-year-old had suffered from heart complications while in office but seemed to be getting stronger post-presidency. However, in 1969, he was admitted to Walter Reed Hospital. Senator Dole visited him often. “If he needed anything, I would be there,” Dole recalled. “He had all kinds of help, he probably didn’t need me, but I needed him.” The statesman, supreme allied commander, former president, and fellow Kansan died on March 28, 1969.
Dole continued to impress his peers and fellow politicians. He was selected to serve as Republican National Committee chairman from 1971 to 1973. Throughout his term, he earned a reputation for working with Democrats and Republicans to find solutions where others saw divides.
In 1972, he married the woman who would be the defining love of his life. Elizabeth Hanford of the Hanfords of North Carolina was the deputy assistant to President Nixon for consumer affairs before becoming commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission from 1973 to 1979. She was a very successful politician in her own right, serving in the Ford administration and as a cabinet secretary in the Reagan and Bush administrations. It was Elizabeth who truly cemented Dole’s faith. “I paid attention to what Elizabeth already knew — she knows every verse of the Bible,” Dole said. Dole prayed every single day and did his best to maintain a strong relationship with God. “You thank God for the good and bad in life,” as he put it.
Dole once testified as a character witness for Elizabeth, telling the Senate committee, “I regret that I have but one wife to give for my country.” It brought the Congress down in gales of laughter. He always had a great sense of humor. So did some on his staff, who lovingly referred to him as the “Bobster.”
Then came the years of high honors and low failures. He won many awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. At the White House ceremony, he started in solemnly, “I, Robert Dole, do solemnly swear . . .” — the opening of the presidential oath of office. Again, it brought down the house. So did his joke about dreaming he’d get something at the White House, but erroneously thought it would be the key to the front door. Laughter. He appeared on Saturday Night Live, poking fun at himself. More laughter. He made commercials.
He ran and lost with Gerald Ford in 1976. He won his party’s nomination in 1996, and, despite facing Ross Perot as well, did better against incumbent Bill Clinton than could have been expected. And his campaigning did save GOP control of the Congress while denying Clinton a landslide. Later, he delivered a touching eulogy for former president Richard Nixon. People wept.
He had a world of friends and a small coterie of enemies. He once told me two people drove him nuts: people who talked too much about their military service and draft dodgers. He very much liked George McGovern, a World War II vet, and despite McGovern’s being a liberal, he and Dole sometimes worked on legislation together, including a program to feed the hungry children of the world. He donated to many causes and charities. Every year, speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sent orchids on his birthday.
He was the inspiration for the long-missing World War II Memorial in Washington and the memorial to Eisenhower, also on the Mall in Washington.
His combat wounds made him very sympathetic to the plight of others in need, both physically and otherwise, and he acted upon it as a U.S. senator and as a private citizen. He may be the most popular man never elected president. Republicans loved him. Independents loved him. Democrats liked him.
He’s gone now, this American hero. He was sui generis, Latin for one of a kind. He was strong and he was kind. He was smart and he was humble. He was brave and he was reverent. He was a Boy Scout and he was irreverent. He was charitable and he was for economic sensibleness. His kind won’t be found anymore.
When asked about his legacy, he said only: “I don’t know what I was. . . . I’ve only ever tried to be a nice guy, I still try to be a nice guy.” Bob Dole was far more than a nice guy: He was an American. An iconic American. An American who put country, goodness, and goodwill before all.
When asked about being a statesman, he simply said: “I hope I earned it.”
Farewell, Bobster.
R.I.P., Bob Dole.
Editor’s note: This article originally stated that Bob Dole was wounded in combat in 1942. He was wounded in 1945.