<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER  No. 2111 -- 7/03/2010 >>>>>


By now all of you have probably listened to President Obama’s immigration
speech, but if you haven’t click the Whitehouse website for the video and
transcript.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/07/01/president-obama-fixing-broken-immi
gration-system-getting-past-two-poles-debate
President Obama Immigration Speech

Obama opened his speech by remembering Edward Kennedy:

   I want to thank American University for welcoming me to the campus
   once again. Some may recall that the last time I was here I was
   joined by a dear friend, and a giant of American politics, Senator
   Edward Kennedy. (Applause.) Teddy’s not here right now, but his
   legacy of civil rights and health care and worker protections is
   still with us.

It was very touching that Obama lamented Ted Kennedy's death, however he
never mentioned the deceased Senator Robert Byrd. That’s a stunning
omission considering Byrd’s body lay in repose in the Senate chamber just
a few miles away from American University where Obama gave his speech. As
if that wasn't weird enough, in 1963 President John Kennedy presented Sen.
Robert Byrd an honorary doctor of law degree -- at American University.

To see a picture of the 1963 commencement and to read more detail use this
link:
http://american.edu/americantoday/campus-news/20100628senator-robert-byrd.cf
m

There are many reasons that Obama should have shown remorse and respect for
Byrd. This list is far from complete but let’s ponder a few:

    * Byrd served in the Senate for 51 years after serving 6 years in the
House.  Nobody else in U.S. history has served Congress for such a long
time.

    * Byrd was the Democratic majority leader twice.

    * Byrd was president pro tempore of the Senate, which put him 3rd in
line to the Presidency.

    * Byrd cast more than 18,000 votes in the Senate.

    * Byrd supported Obama’s presidential campaign.

    * Byrd was a consistent supporter of unemployment insurance. Recently
the Senate couldn’t pass an extension because Byrd wasn’t there to cast
the single vote in favor that the Democrats needed.

    * Byrd supported a national holiday for Martin Luther King Jr.

    * Byrd was an excellent blue grass fiddle player.


So, the question is this: Considering nothing is an accident in Washington
D.C. -- why didn’t Obama mention one of the most famous Democrats in
American history? Let’s ponder again:


    * Byrd was a stalwart against amnesty, calling it "sheer lunacy".

    * Byrd had an excellent record at opposing employment based visas. In
2005 he said that there was: "absolutely no economic justification for
expanding the H-1B program".

    * Byrd sponsored a 2005 Amendment (SA 2367) that would have prevented
the omnibus spending bill from including massive increases in the number of
H-1B visas and EB green cards that could be issued. Obama voted against it;
ironically Illinois colleague and ardent supporter Sen. Durbin voted in
favor of the amendment.

    * Byrd was a staunch state’s right advocate.

    * Byrd filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act for 14 hours.

    * Byrd was a Klansman in the 1940’s. He apologized for the "youthful
indiscretion" for the rest of his life and described it as an "albatross
around my neck".


Of all the reasons that Obama had for the conspicuous snub of Robert Byrd,
the most likely motivator was the fact that Byrd and Obama were polar
opposites on the issue of amnesty, comprehensive immigration reform, and
guest worker importation. Obama must have felt that mentioning Byrd
obviated the speech. Kennedy on the other hand got the mention because he
was an open-border globalist.

Obama’s omission says something very disturbing about how readily he will
throw his friends under the bus if it is politically expedient to do so.

So, what else was wrong with the speech? Peter Brimelow just published a
blog that should grab your attention.

http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2010/07/02/obamas-immigration-speech-stop-lau
ghing-hes-serious/
Obama’s Immigration Speech: Stop Laughing, He’s Serious, by Peter
Brimelow On 2 July 2010

   But actually Obama’s speech was no laughing manner. For example, it
   contained this telling line:

      "We should make it easier for the best and the brightest
      to come to start businesses and develop products and
      create jobs."

   That means the Obama legislation, when it materializes, will include
   increases in legal immigration. He’s going to go the full Bush, in
   other words -- the Open Borders element in Bush’s 2004 amnesty
   proposal that was so incredible that Republican voters literally
   didn’t believe he had proposed it.


Just in case Brimelow’s statement was too subtle to give you the jolt,
let me restate that last paragraph in starker terms: OBAMA SAID THAT WE
NEED TO EXPAND THE H-1B VISA PROGRAM.


LINKS:

Blog Version of Newsletter:
http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2010/07/02/obama-laments-kennedy-doesnt-menti
on-byrd/


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYHs_gho5cY
Senator Robert Byrd: There's More Pretty Girls Than One (1978 Recording)

http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2010/07/01/requiem-for-senator-robert-byrd/
Requiem for Senator Robert Byrd
(or see previous newsletter)

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm
?congress=109&session=1&vote=00295
U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 109th Congress - 1st Session, November 3, 2005,
Number: S.Amdt. 2367

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/senator_robert_byrd_lies_in_repose_A0E
05TPYzWjoKgKkt1MH3H
Senator Robert Byrd lies in repose in Senate

http://washingtonindependent.com/90750/for-senate-advocates-of-unemployment-
insurance-extension-a-battle-to-nowhere
For Senate Advocates of Unemployment Insurance Extension, a Battle to
Nowhere

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/18/AR2005061801
105.html
A Senator's Shame


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/senator_robert_byrd_lies_in_repose_A0E
05TPYzWjoKgKkt1MH3H


Senator Robert Byrd lies in repose in Senate

Last Updated: 3:38 PM, July 1, 2010

Posted: 2:39 PM, July 1, 2010

Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), the longest-serving member of the U.S.
Senate, made one final visit to the chamber where he spent 51 years on
Thursday.

Byrd, who died Monday at age 92, will lie in repose for six hours, allowing
members of Congress and the public to pay their respects.

His love of the Senate was behind the decision to honor him on the Senate
floor, rather than in the Capitol Rotunda where other prominent politicians
are memorialized.

At the time of his death, Byrd was president pro tempore of the Senate,
third in line to the presidency behind the vice president and House
Speaker.

Byrd became known for enforcing the rules and traditions of the legislative
body as well as for his staunch commitment to lifting his state out of
poverty by channeling billions in federal money to West Virginia.

Byrd’s casket was placed on the Lincoln Catafalque, a platform that was
first used to hold the coffin of Abraham Lincoln in 1865.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will travel to
Charleston, W.Va. for a memorial service at the state capitol Friday
honoring Byrd.

From there, his body will return to Arlington, Va. for a funeral and burial
Tuesday at Columbia Gardens Cemetary where his wife, Erma, is buried.

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin will not begin the search for Byrd’s
replacement until after next week’s funeral service.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://washingtonindependent.com/90750/for-senate-advocates-of-unemployment-
insurance-extension-a-battle-to-nowhere

For Senate Advocates of Unemployment Insurance Extension, a Battle to
Nowhere
Four Rounds of Fighting Have Still Not Produced a Long-Term Extension
By Annie Lowrey 7/1/10 6:00 AM

Senate Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell (Ky.), have repeatedly blocked
attempts to extend unemployment insurance over deficit concerns.
(epa/ZUMApress.com)

On Wednesday night, a bare-bones measure to keep federally funded
unemployment insurance checks headed to the long-term unemployed failed in
the Senate. Moderate Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of
Maine had signed on to vote for cloture on the $34 billion bill. But
without Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), who passed away earlier in the week,
Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) -- the majority leader who hails from the state
with the worst unemployment rate in the country -- once again found himself
stuck at 59 votes. By the time Byrd’s replacement is in place, in
mid-July, two million Americans will have lost their benefits, and the bill
extending them will have languished for some 11 weeks.

Economists insist it should not be like this. Benefits for the jobless
remain one of the most effective forms of stimulus. Mark Zandi, chief
economist at Moodys.com, estimates that they generate $1.61 of stimulus for
every dollar spent. Moreover, expanding unemployment insurance is wildly
popular, even among conservatives. Poll after poll shows that a vast
majority of Americans support giving aid to the laid-off. And on Capitol
Hill, even the most stringent deficit hawks do not object to the
unemployment benefits themselves. They object to expanding the deficit to
pay for them.

Democrats insist that the benefits expand the deficit, to put new dollars
and fresh demand into the economy. Deficit reduction will have to happen,
they say, but later. Having the government give with one hand and take with
the other makes little sense. In this, they received support on Wednesday
from Doug Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, who said
that "[cutting the deficit] while economic activity and employment remain
well below their potential levels would probably slow the economic
recovery." Republicans, however, have not been convinced.

So, the debate has dragged on. Yesterday evening’s failed cloture vote is
just the latest in a long line of disappointments and failures around
unemployment insurance, known as UI. For the past nine months, the Senate
has devoted hours of floor time and hundreds of hours of behind-the-scenes
negotiations to ensuring that the government continues to support those
left unemployed by the worst labor-market recession since the Great
Depression. And for the past nine months, every bill -- every extension,
every jobs package -- has faced staunch opposition from Republicans.
Repeatedly, the Senate has had to turn to short-term stopgap measures
rather than more permanent extensions. In the words of one aide, "it is
beyond frustrating," particularly since the measures are so
noncontroversial. "Frustrating" has become the touchword for advocates of
UI -- and particularly for the unemployed.

It was last fall that Democrats in the White House and on the Hill started
worrying that the extended unemployment benefits created by the American
Reinvestment and Recovery Act -- the $787 billion stimulus bill passed in
February 2009 -- were running out before any sign of a labor-market
recovery. The stimulus bill both lengthened the number of weeks of benefits
by 13 or 20 and made some more generous, by $25 a week -- enough to keep
800,000 people out of poverty, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
has estimated.

But by the summer of 2009, the economy had not turned around. The September
jobs report showed that the unemployment rate had edged up to 9.8 percent,
a 26-year high. Joblessness had officially become a crisis in and of
itself. And the stimulus’ expansion of unemployment benefits was due to
expire on Dec. 31. President Barack Obama told the nation in a radio
address, "[The] report on September job losses was a sobering reminder that
progress comes in fits and starts, and that we will need to grind out this
recovery step by step. That’s why I’m working closely with my economic
team to explore additional options to promote job creation." Democrats
decided they needed to renew the benefits, and to expand them further.

ROUND ONE
Having decided to re-up the federal unemployment insurance benefits, House
Democrats originated a bill and passed it with relative ease. The Senate
created a stronger version -- extending UI benefits for 14 weeks in all
states, and 20 weeks in states with unemployment rates higher than 8.5
percent. The maximum number of weeks reached 99.

Senate Democrats anticipated some difficulty moving the measure. They were
in the midst of the health care fight, and the bill was not offset with
reductions in spending elsewhere; Republicans, they knew, might not come on
board instantly. Still, given the horrific condition of the labor market,
they expected nothing like the fight they got. On Oct. 8, Reid asked for
unanimous consent to move the motion forward. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.)
objected. Five days later, Senate Democrats tried again. Sen. Orrin Hatch
(R-Utah) objected. Thus started a month-long battle over help for the
jobless while the unemployment rate flirted with double digits.

The Senate quickly became embroiled in debates over amendments -- with Sen.
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the minority leader, insisting that Reid allow
consideration of a provision to ensure that the community-organizing group
and Republican bugbear ACORN would receive no federal funding and another
provision to filter illegal immigrants out of the workforce. The amendments
enraged Democrats, who saw them as pointless, and a tool for time-wasting.
"The other amendments are vexatious," Reid fumed. "They are argumentative.
We don’t want them. They are not germane. They are not relevant to this
legislation." Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) echoed his thoughts. "This
[Republican obstruction] has become a tactic," Stabenow told TWI at the
time. "We could have [moved this bill] three weeks ago."

After weeks of debate, the bill passed a cloture vote to move to
consideration, 87 to 13. Democrats expected the legislation to race to
passage, but Republicans continued to bring up objections, requiring a
number of procedural votes and hours of floor time. "Maybe [Republicans]
needed another ACORN amendment," Reid said. "Maybe that would be something
that would please them." (The amendments did not make it in.) On Oct. 4 --
27 days and four votes since the bill’s initial introduction -- it passed
unanimously, 98-0. It became law in early November, adding two new tiers of
unemployment benefits. The bill was a success -- but the struggle for it
was a portent of the difficulties to come for Democrats trying to extend
benefits for the jobless.

ROUND TWO
That same month, the Senate Democratic leadership admitted problems with
the extension. For one, the unemployment rate had drifted above 10 percent,
seemingly necessitating a further expansion of the safety net.
Additionally, there was a serious glitch in the bill: A Dec. 31 filing
deadline meant that many jobless Americans would not get the full 20 weeks
of benefits. The National Employment Law Project estimated that 475,000
people would exhaust state-funded benefits after Dec. 31, missing the
deadline and losing federal help; a further 580,000 would exhaust one tier
of federally funded benefits just after the deadline, missing out on
additional federal benefits. Congress needed to extend the deadline. And it
needed a better underlying unemployment bill to boot.

In December, Democrats managed to get the patch into the Defense
Appropriations Bill after some wrangling -- but only a two-month extension,
to the end of February. Still, it gave them time to focus on an ambitious
new bill aiding the unemployed and others hurt by the recessionary economy:
pushing back the deadlines for the federal unemployment benefits,
authorizing more Medicaid and COBRA funding and stalling a 21 percent cut
to payments to doctors under Medicare, among numerous other measures under
consideration. In December, the House passed those measures as part of the
Tax Extenders Act of 2009 -- later known as the American Jobs and Closing
Tax Loopholes Act of 2010 and commonly referred to by its House resolution
number, 4213.

Before the Senate could get to it, again, benefits started expiring. On
Feb. 25, Senate Democrats asked for unanimous consent for a House-passed
30-day extension of COBRA and unemployment benefits -- just enough time to
let the Senate get a more permanent fix in place. But Sen. Jim Bunning
(R-Ky.) objected. "Everybody in this chamber wants to extend unemployment
benefits," he said. "[But] if we can’t find $10 billion somewhere for a
bill that everybody in this body supports, we will never pay for anything."
Reid kept on pushing for unanimous consent. Bunning kept on objecting --
stopping the Senate from moving forward a total of eleven times.

After a five-day standoff that threatened to stop all congressional work,
and after Senate Republican leadership expressed their anger with Bunning,
he eventually gave up. The vote passed, 78 to 19.

ROUND THREE
With the temporary extension signed into law, Senate Democrats moved on to
a more permanent fix for unemployment insurance and serious consideration
of 4213. Reid hoped to extend federal unemployment benefits through the end
of 2010, rather than a few months at a time. The Senate included the
provision in its amendment to the bill, and the motion passed on March 10,
62 to 36, with six Republicans joining the Democrats and only Sen. Ben
Nelson (D-Neb.) breaking against them.

The problem? Some argued portions of the bill violated new paygo rules:
Democrats could deficit-spend only in "emergencies," and did the
unemployment situation really qualify? Most Democrats insist they do, and
have pushed back against whittling down the stimulus to pay for the
benefits. "[UI extensions are] done in a way that we have always done it,"
Stabenow told TWI. "[Those are] always categorized as an emergency. And,
frankly, if 15 million people without jobs is not an emergency, I don’t
know what is."

Either way, the bill needed to go back to the House for approval. And House
deficit hawks were not looking kindly on it anymore. Without the bill
signed into law, the expiry of unemployment benefits -- an albatross
following Democrats for months by that time -- returned again.

Procedurally, maneuvering to get another patch proved remarkably difficult.
The Senate chose to take up a House-passed one-month extension, then to
move to a more permanent solution. "We should not let these programs
expire," Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) argued on the Senate floor. But
Republicans insisted they would not vote for anything not paid for.

They prevented unanimous consent -- meaning Democrats needed to file
cloture on the motion, and needed to give it time to "ripen" before a vote.
It came down to the Friday before a two-week vacation started at the end of
March. The long-term unemployed would start falling off of the federal
government’s rolls on April 5. Congress would not be in session until
April 12. The Senate failed to move, and hundreds of thousands of jobless
Americans -- around 200,000 a week -- stopped getting their unemployment
checks over Easter.

It took until April 15 for the Senate to get to passage of the patch;
Republicans Olympia Snowe (Maine), Susan Collins (Maine) and George
Voinovich (Ohio) crossed the aisle to support the measure. The bill
extended the filing deadline for federal unemployment benefits to June 2,
extended COBRA health subsidies and delayed the 21 percent cut to Medicare
reimbursements for doctors. It cost $18 billion, with no offsets. On April
15, Obama signed it into law.

ROUND FOUR
And so, Congress turned again to 4213 -- the extenders package, passed by
the House, modified by the Senate and returned again to the House. There,
deficit-hawk Democrats insisted on whittling the portions of the
hundred-provision bill down. Compromises took a $140 billion bill down to
$54 billion -- shortening the extension of UI through November, trimming
the Medicare doc fix and the COBRA extension and dropping the additional
$25 a week on jobless checks. It passed, but barely.

The modified bill returned to the Senate just before -- again -- the
extensions of UI and other provisions would start to end over the Memorial
Day holiday. This brings us to the present, where the bill got stuck in the
Senate for a month, dropping extended benefits for 1.2 million Americans
before eventually dying.

The death wasn’t quick. On June 18, it lost a cloture vote, 56-40 -- shy
of the 60 votes needed -- with Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Ben Nelson
(D-Neb.), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Scott Brown
(R-Mass.) all voting no. A week later, a pared-down bill lost another
cloture vote, 57 to 41. The responses ranged from depression to rage. Sen.
John Kerry (D-Mass.) said, "This is one of the worst moments I’ve seen in
25 years in the United States Senate. … Even cutting our original
proposal nearly in half wasn’t enough to secure even one Republican vote
today."

Reid broke the bill up, moving just the unemployment extension portion,
along with a House-passed change to the filing deadline for the homebuyer
tax credit. On Wednesday night, that last stopgap bill died, 58 to 38.
Senate staffers say that this is not the end. They will wait for Byrd’s
replacement, expected to be appointed within two weeks or so, and then move
the bill with Snowe and Collins’ support. They will make the UI checks
retroactive for the two million Americans who have been denied them in
recent weeks.

But the anger is palpable after nine months of delays. "It’s not just
Harry Reid or any other Democrat who needs brave Republicans to step up,
for once, for what’s right and what’s needed. It’s the people we
serve. We have Republicans ready to protect banks while sticking it to the
working men and women of this country while opposing efforts to extend
unemployment benefits," Jim Manley, Reid’s spokesman, told TWI. "This is
yet one in another series of cynical and brazen attempts by Republicans to
position themselves as the party of ‘hell no’ in November."

And the unemployed? They are confused and enraged. Yesterday evening, I
spoke with Deb Martin, a 49-year-old Ohioan on the verge of losing her
federally extended benefits. "I have kids," she said. "I have a mortgage.
It’s been years of this [garbage] and I don’t know what I’m going to
do without those checks. Even if they make them retroactive, we might be
living in the car by the time they do."

The economic establishment stresses that the unemployment checks continue
to be not only beneficial, but necessary. Testifying before the National
Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, John Irons, the research
and policy director of the Economic Policy Institute argued, "Unemployment
should reach 6 percent or lower, and be trending downward, before any
fiscal contraction should be seriously considered. In fact, with
unemployment hovering near 10 percent and with projections putting
unemployment at elevated levels for at least the next couple of years,
further job creation is indeed necessary."

But privately, Senate staffers whisper that if this unemployment extension
makes it through, it will be the last one. There will be no more torturous
attempts to grant unemployment benefits to the 15 million unemployed. There
will be no bills to add a Tier V for the million who have exhausted all
benefits and still cannot find work. The benefits will end in November.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/18/AR2005061801
105.html

A Senator's Shame

Byrd, in His New Book, Again Confronts Early Ties to KKK

By Eric Pianin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 19, 2005

In the early 1940s, a politically ambitious butcher from West Virginia
named Bob Byrd recruited 150 of his friends and associates to form a
chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. After Byrd had collected the $10 joining fee
and $3 charge for a robe and hood from every applicant, the "Grand Dragon"
for the mid-Atlantic states came down to tiny Crab Orchard, W.Va., to
officially organize the chapter.

As Byrd recalls now, the Klan official, Joel L. Baskin of Arlington, Va.,
was so impressed with the young Byrd's organizational skills that he urged
him to go into politics. "The country needs young men like you in the
leadership of the nation," Baskin said.

The young Klan leader went on to become one of the most powerful and
enduring figures in modern Senate history. Throughout a half-century on
Capitol Hill, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) has twice held the premier
leadership post in the Senate, helped win ratification of the Panama Canal
treaty, squeezed billions from federal coffers to aid his home state, and
won praise from liberals for his opposition to the war in Iraq and his
defense of minority party rights in the Senate.

Despite his many achievements, however, the venerated Byrd has never been
able to fully erase the stain of his association with one of the most
reviled hate groups in the nation's history.

"It has emerged throughout my life to haunt and embarrass me and has taught
me in a very graphic way what one major mistake can do to one's life,
career, and reputation," Byrd wrote in a new memoir -- "Robert C. Byrd:
Child of the Appalachian Coalfields" -- that will be published tomorrow by
West Virginia University Press.

The 770-page book is the latest in a long series of attempts by the
87-year-old Democratic patriarch to try to explain an event early in his
life that threatens to define him nearly as much as his achievements in the
Senate. In it, Byrd says he viewed the Klan as a useful platform from which
to launch his political career. He described it essentially as a fraternal
group of elites -- doctors, lawyers, clergy, judges and other "upstanding
people" who at no time engaged in or preached violence against blacks, Jews
or Catholics, who historically were targets of the Klan.

His latest account is consistent with others he has offered over the years
that tend to minimize his direct involvement with the Klan and explain it
as a youthful indiscretion. "My only explanation for the entire episode is
that I was sorely afflicted with tunnel vision -- a jejune and immature
outlook -- seeing only what I wanted to see because I thought the Klan
could provide an outlet for my talents and ambitions," Byrd wrote.

While Byrd provides the most detailed description of his early involvement
with the Klan, conceding that he reflected "the fears and prejudices I had
heard throughout my boyhood," the account is not complete. He does not
acknowledge the full length of time he spent as a Klan organizer and
advocate. Nor does he make any mention of a particularly incendiary letter
he wrote in 1945 complaining about efforts to integrate the military.

Byrd said in an interview last week that he never intended for his book to
provide "finite details" of his Klan activities, but to show young people
that there are serious consequences to one's choices and that "you can rise
above your past."

He suggested that his career should be judged in light of all that he did
subsequently to help lift his state out of poverty, and to bring basic and
critically needed services and infrastructure to West Virginia.

"I grew up in a state where we didn't have much hope," Byrd said. "I wanted
to help my people and give them hope. . . . I'm just proud that the people
of West Virginia accepted me as I was and helped me along the way."

Byrd's indelible links to the Klan -- the "albatross around my neck," as he
once described it -- shows the remarkable staying power of racial issues
more than 40 years after the height of the civil rights movement. Sen.
Trent Lott (R-Miss.) learned that lesson the hard way at a birthday party
in December 2002, when his nostalgic words about Sen. Strom Thurmond
(R-S.C.), who ran for president as a segregationist in 1948, caused a
public uproar and cost Lott the majority leader's post.
Klan Issue Raised in House Contest

West Virginia has been embroiled in issues of race and civil rights from
its inception at the start of the Civil War, when 55 western mountain
counties with few slaves seceded from Virginia. From the beginning, the
rich veins of bituminous coal beneath rugged mountain ranges drove the
state's economy, and attracted workers from throughout Appalachia and
immigrants from as far away as Eastern and Southern Europe. Few blacks
settled in the state, and even today African Americans constitute little
more than 3 percent of the population.

A world away from many of the millionaires who inhabit the Senate, Byrd
grew up poor but proud during the Depression, with a stunning work ethic
and a hunger to learn. Born Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr. in North Wilkesboro,
N.C., on Nov. 20, 1917, the future senator was a year old when his mother
died of influenza. In accordance with her wishes, his father dispersed the
children among family members. Young Cornelius was sent to live with an
uncle and aunt, Titus and Vlurma Byrd, who settled in southern West
Virginia. The Byrds adopted their young nephew and renamed him Robert C.
Byrd.

Byrd recalls in his book that when he was a small boy, his adoptive father,
a coal miner, left him with a friend in Matoaka, W.Va., one Saturday while
he went to participate in a parade. Watching from the window, young Byrd
saw people dressed in white hoods and robes and wearing white masks over
their faces. Some years later, he wrote, he learned that his father had
been a member of the Klan and took part in the parade.

His parents and the boarders who lived with them inculcated Byrd in "the
typical southern viewpoint of the time," he wrote. "Blacks were generally
distrusted by many whites, and I suspect they were subliminally feared."

West Virginia was never considered a hotbed of Klan activity, as were
states in the Deep South, but it had its share of violence against blacks
and immigrants. Forty-eight people, including 28 blacks, were lynched in
West Virginia, mostly during the late 1880s and early 1900s, according to
the Tuskegee University archives. The last two reported lynchings occurred
on Dec. 10, 1931, in Lewisburg, W.Va. By the time Byrd began organizing for
the Klan during World War II, the organization had largely morphed into a
money-making fraternal organization that was virulently anti-black,
anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic.

Married, with two daughters, Byrd developed a network of friends and
associates while working as a meat cutter. He wrote that he became "caught
up with the idea of being part of an organization to which 'leading'
persons belonged."

Byrd's book offers a truncated description of his days with the Klan that
does not completely square with contemporaneous newspaper accounts and
letters that show he was involved with the Klan throughout much of the
1940s, and not merely for two or three years.

According to his book, Byrd wrote to Samuel Green, an Atlanta doctor and
"Imperial Wizard" of the Ku Klux Klan, in late 1941 or early 1942,
expressing interest in joining. Some time later, he received the letter
from Baskin, the "Grand Dragon" of mid-Atlantic states, saying he would
come to Byrd's home in Crab Orchard whenever Byrd had rounded up 150
recruits for the Klan.

When Baskin finally arrived, the group gathered at the home of C.M. "Clyde"
Goodwin, a former local law enforcement official. When it came time to
choose the "Exalted Cyclops," the top officer in the local Klan unit, Byrd
won unanimously.

Byrd asserts that his Klan chapter never engaged in or preached violence,
"nor did we conduct any parades or marches or other public demonstrations"
-- other than one time delivering a wreath of flowers in the shape of a
cross to the home of a member who had been killed in a pistol duel.

Byrd wrote that he continued as a "Kleagle" recruiting for the Klan until
early 1943, when he and his family left Crab Orchard for a welding job in a
Baltimore shipyard. Returning to West Virginia after World War II ended in
1945, he launched his political career, but not before writing another
letter, to one of the Senate's most notorious segregationists, Theodore
Bilbo (D-Miss.), complaining about the Truman administration's efforts to
integrate the military.

Byrd said in the Dec. 11, 1945, letter -- which would not become public for
42 more years with the publication of a book on blacks in the military
during World War II by author Graham Smith -- that he would never fight in
the armed forces "with a Negro by my side." Byrd added that, "Rather I
should die a thousand times, and see old Glory trampled in the dirt never
to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by
race mongrels."

With the help of fiddle-playing skills that became his political trademark
for decades, Byrd won election to the state legislature, where he served in
both chambers until he ran for the U.S. House in 1952. His political career
almost ended there, however, when his opponents revealed his former ties to
the KKK.

Confronting the issue, Byrd went on the radio to acknowledge that he
belonged to the Klan from "mid-1942 to early 1943," according to newspaper
accounts. He explained that he had joined "because it offered excitement
and because it was strongly opposed to communism." He said that after about
a year, he quit and dropped his membership, and never was interested in the
Klan again.

Byrd won the primary, but during the general election campaign, Byrd's GOP
opponent uncovered a letter Byrd had handwritten to Green, the KKK Imperial
Wizard, recommending a friend as a Kleagle and urging promotion of the Klan
throughout the country. The letter was dated 1946 -- long after the time
Byrd claimed he had lost interest in the Klan. "The Klan is needed today as
never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia,"
Byrd wrote, according to newspaper accounts of that period. Byrd makes no
mention of the letter in his new book.

Stunned Democratic state party officials, including then-Gov. Okey L.
Patteson, urged him to drop out of the race. Byrd survived the ensuing
political firestorm, won the general election and went on to serve six
years in the House before winning his Senate seat in 1958. During his
Senate campaign, he told a newspaper reporter that he personally felt the
Klan had been incorrectly blamed for many acts committed by others.

Byrd's life story is one of political transformation and redemption as he
evolved from a redneck politician to a mainstream Democrat in a party
dominated by liberals. But there was no way for him to completely bury his
Klan ties, and his past would resurface time and again throughout his
career.

During the 1960 presidential campaign, Byrd, who was closely allied with
then-Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson (Tex.), tried to derail the
Democratic front-runner, Sen. John F. Kennedy (Mass.), in the crucial West
Virginia primary. At Johnson's urging, Byrd supported Sen. Hubert H.
Humphrey (Minn.) in the primary. Kennedy allies retaliated with leaks to
the press about Byrd's work as a Klan organizer. Byrd said in his book that
as a result he received hate mail and threats on his life.

Four years later, Byrd's Klan past became an issue again when he joined
with other southern Democrats to oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Byrd
filibustered the bill for more than 14 hours as he argued that it abrogated
principles of federalism. He criticized most anti-poverty programs except
for food stamps. And in 1967, he voted against the nomination of Thurgood
Marshall, the first black appointed to the Supreme Court.
Transformation Into Leader of Senate

Historians, political analysts and admirers have long sought to reconcile
Byrd's early Klan affiliation with his image as a pillar of the Senate.
More extraordinary is how he managed to overcome such a blot on his record
to twice become Senate majority leader.

"To imagine someone who was a member of the Klan in his youth who managed
to become the majority leader of the Senate, it's really quite striking,"
said congressional scholar Thomas E. Mann of the Brookings Institution.

Byrd said last week that his membership in the Baptist church tempered his
views and marked "the beginning of big changes in me." And like other
southern and border-state Democrats of his time, Byrd came to realize that
he would have to temper his blatantly segregationist views and edge toward
his party's mainstream if he wanted to advance on the national stage.

As a rising member of the leadership, Byrd paid close attention to minor
legislative and scheduling details that made life easier for other
senators, always showed colleagues elaborate courtesy, and wrote thank you
notes on the slightest pretext. In 1971, he challenged Sen. Edward M.
Kennedy (Mass.) for the majority whip post and unseated him, after securing
the death-bed proxy of the legendary Sen. Richard B. Russell (D-Ga.),
another of Byrd's mentors and the architect of the southern filibuster
against civil rights legislation.

When Sen. Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.) retired as majority leader in 1976, Byrd
easily captured the post.

"Byrd's whole life became the Senate, seven days a week, 24/7, always on
call," said Merle Black, an Emory University expert on southern politics.
"The goal was institutional power, to be influential in the Senate."

But his transformation to mainstream Senate leader was far from smooth, and
his cultural conservatism, emphasis on "law and order," and strong support
for the Vietnam War during the 1960s and 1970s put him at odds with blacks
and many lawmakers in his own party.

James Tolbert, president of the West Virginia chapter of the NAACP and an
occasional critic of the senator, said Byrd transcended his past by
gradually embracing more enlightened social views and by simply owning up
to his past mistakes. "He doesn't try to lie his way out of things,"
Tolbert said. "If he's wrong, he'll say he's wrong."

By relentlessly serving his state's economic interests, Byrd has secured
his place as West Virginia's preeminent politician. As a long-reigning
chairman and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, Byrd pumped
billions of dollars worth of jobs, programs and projects into the state
that did not have a single mile of divided four-lane highway when he began
his political career. More than three dozen bridges, highways, schools and
public buildings are named for him.

Still, says Ken Hechler, 90, a liberal Democratic former U.S. House member
from West Virginia who served with Byrd in Congress, "It's impossible for
anyone to try to whitewash the KKK and its overall symbolism."

"But at the same time," he added, "we honor those people who publicly admit
the error of their ways."

Last week, Byrd said: "I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in
America. I apologized a thousand times . . . and I don't mind apologizing
over and over again. I can't erase what happened."

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