The Senator from Central Casting: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Thomas J. Dodd

by David E. Koskoff

With his noble features and flowing white hair, Tom Dodd looked the quintessential Senator. Nobody sounded more Senatorial; even his ordinary speech consisted of speeches, his sentences of aphorisms. Yet beneath this facade was a scattered man, emotionally unstable and alcoholic, financially troubled. Talent and luck had brought Dodd an out-sized career. His personal demons and the betrayal of those he trusted would ultimately destroy it. David Koskoff's fascinating narrative tells the entire Dodd story, from early promise and achievement to the final years of decline and disgrace. Koskoff also connects the dots to reveal the underpinnings of the posthumous rehabilitation of Tom Dodd's reputation by his son, Senator Christopher Dodd. Tom Dodd's early career included a stint with the FBI, where he was involved in a shoot-out with mythic bank robber John Dillinger; and later a year as the chief trial attorney for the prosecution at the Nuremberg War Crimes trial of 1945-6. Dodd's glamorous past and his distinguished Nuremberg service propelled him into the U.S. House of Representatives, then the U.S. Senate. As a Senator, Dodd was known as a mesmerizing orator, most famous for his virulent opposition to all things communist, particularly to rapprochement with the Soviet Union. In addition to serving the anti-communist cause, he served himself, supporting a lavish lifestyle by milking his many conflicts of interest, and pocketing campaign funds. In his seventh year as Senator, his one-time acolyte James Boyd, later his administrative assistant, became his Judas. Together with Dodd's personal secretary and his office manager---the people who knew Dodd the best and who owed him the most---Boyd secreted out of Dodd's office 7,000 sheets of documents, which he turned over to muckraking journalist Jack Anderson. Anderson's 100 columns about Dodd led to his censure by the Senate for financial improprieties, by a vote of 92 to 5. Many years later, with the financial backing of multi-billionaire John W. Kluge, Christopher Dodd was able to obscure this history by establishing the Nobel-like Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights and securing the naming of a new showplace building at the University of Connecticut as The Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. In death, Tom Dodd became a symbol of civic virtue and the fight against tyranny. Exhaustively researched, richly illustrated, The Senator from Central Casting tells a compelling story of human frailty and realpolitik.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published April 18, 2011

Reviews

[Robert LoCicero · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this volume to be quite a remarkable piece of writing. Author Koskoff did a fantastic job of researching the voluminous materials available in the Senator's personal papers and in the score of other locations of recipients, colleagues and antagonists whom with the Senator had written or oral communications. Senator Thomas Todd of Connecticut led an amazing life in which he started off his public career of service acting as a prosecuting attorney in the Nuremberg Trials following World War II. He had earlier worked in the FBI when President Roosevelt had increased the manpower of legal fighters against 1930s gangsters and his legal work had gotten him recognition. The American legal team was led by Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson and Todd was viewed by him and others in Germany (including some of the Nazis on trial) as the most competent courtroom attorney actively working that memorable case. The future Senator had had experience with the US Department of Justice in the 1930s and even been the lead prosecutor in the famous trial of the five alleged Nazi sympathizers accused of having conspired to give military secrets to the Nazis in the years before America's entry into World War II. Nationwide publicity had been on that case and Thomas Todd rode his courtroom performances and resultant popularity to become involved in local and national political campaigns in his home state of Connecticut. He had a political victory in 1952, the year of a big Eisenhower sweep, by winning a Congressional seat. During his tenure, Todd
was fiercely anti-Communist and witness to the developments in Latin America in which less than democrat-minded leaders saw monies and military aid sent their way with CIA assistance and Congressional funded quarterbacked by such strong anti-Communist politicians as Thomas Todd. This included developments in Southeast Asia and the Baltic states in Europe threatened by Communist Russia or Communist insurgents in a divided Vietnam.
The story of Thomas Todd is told in an entertaining and highly informative manner by the author. Once Thomas Todd was elected in 1958 as Senator from Connecticut, his story and travails take off. It is a wild ride and the pages of this book are filled with details from various sources and a healthy amount of quoted words of the many players in this drama. My opinion is that alcohol addiction played a part in the grandiosity of this man and his missteps while serving the nation, his benefactors and above all, himself. You read this story and think that it ends with the first ever censure of a seated Senator in June 1967. Senator Todd had been found guilty of using public funds garnered at testimonials and campaign events for his own personal use (his lifestyle and family obligations could not be met by his regular income). He was found not guilty of "double-billing" expenses but that mattered little as he was a broken man after the ordeal of nine days of public hearings and questioning of him and his accusers regarding the alleged infractions. The author does a splendid job explaining the process and with displaying the ins and outs of all actions of the participants. After this momentous event, you would think there would be nothing left to write about. You would be mistaken as author Koskoff takes us through the years after the censure and beyond the Senator's death (heart attack) in 1971, via the legacies of Todd's son, Christopher, who also served an even longer term as a Connecticut Senator.
I found this highly readable book to be completely enjoyable and a necessary read for any political junkies who are fascinated by people at the pinnacle of power who fall victim, as thousands have through recorded history, to grandiosity, greed, egotistical behavior, and an unquenchable thirst for power and control over others.

[Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

In terms of some of the sins of other Senators Thomas J. Dodd was strictly a piker. Not that he didn't
do what he did and what he did wasn't true or honest, but he was strictly second rate in terms of
others who never went unpunished.

Dodd was a conservative Democrat from Connecticut who was born to working class parents in 1907.
He became a lawyer and found employment in the Justice Department of FDR. At first in the Federal
Bureau Of Investigation. Probably the only Senator I can think of who worked for J.Edgar Hoover.
In Congress Dodd was a very good friend of the FBI and its director.

His greatest work came when he was sent to Nuremberg to work under Justice Robert H. Jackson and
spent the better part of two years prosecuting some of the top Nazis. That service put him into
Connecticut Democratic politics.

Where he tried for many offices. Finally got a seat in the House of Representatives and served from
1953 to 1957. In 1956 he made an unsuccessful run against family patriarch Prescott Bush for the
Senate. He had better luck in 1958 when he ran and beat moderate Eisenhower Republican William
A. Purtell for the Senate in that very heavy Democratic year.

Dodd did two terms in the Senate and the picture of him isn't flattering. He enjoyed too much the
perks of office, developed a severe drinking problem and was sloppy with constituent services. He
staunchly supported the Vietnam War and was J.Edgar's best friend.

Knowing that you would have thought Hoover might have protected him. But he didn't or couldn't
and Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson exposed his money grubbing ways in a series of columns
exposing conflicts of interest.

Even so author Koskoff still keeps open the possibility that it was sloppy bookkeeping that might
have brought him down. Dodd lost a Democratic primary in 1970 going for a third term after his
colleagues censured him. He ran as an independent and split the vote with Democratic nominee
Joseph Duffey and Republican Lowell Weicker got in.

Dodd died in 1972, but his legacy has been somewhat rehabilitated by his kids, especially Senator
Christopher Dodd of Connecticut. That and things like Watergate made his scandal second rate.

A strange and curious man,tinted with corruption, but wasn't all that bad.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-researched, conversational history. Koskoff's ambivalence about Dodd's character shows throughout, but it makes for interesting reading. The best parts are the chapters surrounding Dodd's crimes, his staff's conspiracy to expose them, and the eventual Senate investigation and censure.