John Dickerson is a native Washingtonian and a graduate of the University of Virginia. He covered politics for TIME Magazine for twelve years, the last four as their White House correspondent. He is currently Slate magazine?s chief political correspondent. Dickerson has written a book about his mother, “On Her Trail: My Mother, Nancy Dickerson, TV News First Woman Star” (Simon & Schuster, 2006), who died in 1997. He lives with his family in Washington.
One of the most surprising things about your book was the humor.
My dad is a first class wit and my mother was to a lesser extent, but she loved wit and admired it in her friends. … I?m sure that, at some level, I use it to deal with things. Certainly I used it to get through my mother?s final illness.
You wrote that you and your brother had no tutoring of the sort your mother could have given you on Washington. What is the most important thing you did learn from her?
Extraordinary determination and will. When I went through her papers after her death, I was repeatedly surprised that our family did not fall apart, that she didn?t fall apart. Going to the office was no picnic for her. Men she respected were making fun of her or not taking her seriously. She powered through it. Diane Sawyer [a close friend in her last years] said she was “hardwired for courtesy”; she was also hardwired for determination. I learned too about her sense of grace professionally, which was surprising, given her frustration and clumsiness in private.
What?s the biggest difference between her Washington and yours?
The town was a whole lot more fun then. There was a greater sense that, whether a Democrat or Republican, everyone was a part of the same exciting period. [P]eople were full of ideas, they were excited about the Great Society and changing things. There was plenty of ego and that kind of thing, but that?s true of any worthwhile endeavor.
It just seems ? and I realize it?s been idealized and looking back seems even more glamorous than it was ? but it still seemed that the city was full of energy, both from nine to five and then afterwards. The social life of this city has so shriveled that it?s become tiresome. The sense of excitement has withered.
The other side is that the relationship between a reporter and the president can?t really exist any more, not in the way it did with Mom. There?s a lot of good to that. But I believe that there different people who can play different roles in the media environment, and it wouldn?t be bad to have some columnists that actually understood the president.
What do you think she got out of being a mother?
She loved portions of it very genuinely and in a real, real way. I think she felt that parenting was something to have done, rather than be doing. And once having been done, she felt quite good about it. She really thought she was doing the right thing. There was no manual for how to do this. When you?re wired in a way in which you have adrenaline and drive and ambition in the public sphere, they?re going to clash [with motherhood] and you have no manual for how to work out those clashes; you apply what?s worked for you your whole life ? grit and determination ? that may or may not be the right recipe. At the end of her life, she was happy that I?m grown up and am in for this life in the press which she loved and that genuinely made her truly happy.
What books on Washington would you recommend?
Meg Greenfield?s book of collected essays (Washington, Public Affairs, 2002) is just fantastic. Gore Vidal?s novel, “Washington, DC” (Vintage, 2000) is … a wonderful portrait of this city. Katharine Graham?s autobiography (Personal History, Vintage, 1998) is great, and “Katharine Graham?s Washington” (Knopf, 2003) has some wonderful essays in it.
