Senator Bob Graham’s notebooks are in the news again, as he’s published a thriller based on his experiences with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the inquiry into 9/11.
You are known to take notes and keep a very strict record of everything you do. Do you still do that?
Yes.When did you start doing that, and how easy is that?
My father was in the cattle business, and when he saw a sick cow or something, he’d write it down. So I did it from adolescence, but in a disorganized way. Then when I began running for governor in 1977, I was meeting a lot of people for the first time, and I wanted to get their name and address and something about what it was they were interested in, so from that necessity, I developed using these notebooks, and now they serve that purpose. That’s a daily log of what I do throughout the day, which helps me if there’s somebody that called, and I haven’t returned their call, I’ll have it noted in my book.You must have a lot of those stacked up some place.
2,500. I keep the last two years of these notebooks at my office because I will frequently refer to those. Those that are older than that are at the University of Florida Library, I think the same place (former U.S. Sen.) George Smathers has his materials.
Read more here: Former Sen. Bob Graham: Afghanistan, Obama and 2,500 notebooks
How incredibly interesting. I like that he started his notebooks to keep track of names and addresses of people he met – I’m sure in a Senator’s day the number of people you meet would be staggering. Good way to keep track of names. Sounds like he’d be an interesting person to talk to, and reading those notebooks would be fascinating.