Elly Peterson: From Secretary to No. 2 in the GOP

Before there were GOP activists like Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, there was Elly Peterson.

In 1963, just six years after taking a secretarial job for the Michigan Republican Party, she was named its vice chairman. Elly's sharp administrative skills made her a natural for the job.

The following year, at the urging of Governor George W. Romney, Elly ran (unsuccessfully) for the U.S. Senate.

From 1969-70, she served as assistant chairman of the Republican National Committee in Washington, D.C. I was a journalism student working in public relations at the RNC at the time.


Unlike more divisive figures that have taken over the GOP today, Elly advanced an inclusive, big-tent approach to politics that welcomed conservative Barry Goldwater, moderate Richard Nixon and liberal George Romney. (See photo of Richard M. Nixon, George Romney and Elly during the 1964 campaign. Photo courtesy of the Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Elly M. Peterson papers.)

Elly was an independent thinker, sympathetic to the feminist movement. The issue of equal rights became personal, however, in 1965 when she was preparing to assume the title of chair of the Michigan Republican Party and learned that her salary would be $6,000 less than that of her male predecessor.

Elly went on to become national cochair of ERAmerica, a private national campaign organization, during the fight to get the Equal Rights Amendment ratified. (See photo to the left of Elly, former First Lady Betty Ford and Bella Abzug listen as First Lady Rosalynn Carter addresses the ERAmerica rally at the International Women’s Year Conference in Houston, November 1977. Photo Credit: Carolyn Salisbury, National Education Association, ERAmerica records. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.) Elly was also a member of the NAACP.

In 1967, Elly waged a successful battle against ERA-opponent Phyllis Schlafly (who once said, "Sexual harassment on the job is not a problem for virtuous women”) for control of the National Federation of Republican Women.

When Elly retired from the RNC, columnist David S. Broder wrote in The Washington Post that she would have probably been chosen to lead the party “were it not for the unwritten sex barrier both parties have created around the job.”

During the Reagan years, Elly grew further alienated from the GOP and eventually declared herself an independent.

Before her passing in June 2008, at the age of 94, she was a supporter of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Former Washington Post editor Sara Fitzgerald (see photo left), and a follower of this blog, just released a landmark biography of Ms. Peterson titled, "Elly Peterson: 'Mother' of the Moderates."

She explains why she used 'Mother' to describe Elly:

"Elly Peterson had no children of her own, but dozens of protégées and colleagues called her 'Mother' or variations thereof. It all started in 1957 when Lawrence Lindemer, who was then chair of the Michigan Republican Party, hired Peterson as a secretary. The party’s offices in Lansing were in total disarray, and, according to Peterson, in desperate need of a cleaning job and someone to organize all of the files. She came in and took charge of every aspect of the clean-up job."

Sara, who grew up in Michigan, was a teenager when she watched the 1964 GOP Convention. She said she was surprised to see a woman, Elly Peterson, being interviewed by a national television correspondent. Concurrently, Elly became the first woman to address a national political convention. Sara followed Elly's career, taking special notice when she championed the ERA.

It was fortuitous when, in the early 1990s, Sara learned that her parents had become friends with Elly who was a neighbor of theirs in a retirement community in North Carolina. Later, in 2005, Sara approached Elly with the idea to write her biography.

"Since my college days, I had been interested in women’s history, and I always felt that her story was one that had never been fully told," she explained. "I was gratified that when I finally had the time to work on the project, she was still alive and willing to share her memories with me."

With her passion for the project it was not surprising that Sara has received kudos for her book:

"Sara Fitzgerald tells Peterson's story in this superb and timely biography. It carries a message that deserves the widest audience as the nation struggles to find needed consensus on critical issues amid poisonous political partisanship that has made it increasingly difficult for public officials to bridge their differences. I hope that every American reads it." — Haynes Johnson, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist.

"A magisterially written, well-researched, informative, and entertaining biography of a woman who helped throw open the doors to broader participation and power for women in the Republican Party and American politics." —Dave Dempsey, author of William G. Milliken: Michigan's Passionate Moderate

"Elly Peterson will be a text to which historians and researchers turn for insight into the yin and yang of mainstream politics in the mid-century." —Patricia Sullivan, past president, Journalism and Women Symposium

Click here for more information or to order "Elly Peterson: 'Mother" of the Moderates."

Click here to read Sara Fitzgerald's blog, "What Would Elly Think."

Donna Lee, Sen. John Tower's Office, 1962

This is an excerpt from Donna Lee who worked as a secretary in the office of Sen. John Tower (R-Texas) in 1962, and Sen. Peter Dominick [R-Colo.] in 1963. Donna begins by recalling how she happened to get her first job on Capitol Hill:

"My dad, Howard Lee, married [film actress] Gene Tierney in Aspen in the summer of 1960. In September of 1961, Gene went to D.C to make a movie called Advise & Consent, and she and my dad asked me to come along. The movie was directed by Otto Preminger, a friend of Gene's from making Laura many years earlier, and starred many outstanding actors - Charles Laughton, Henry Fonda, Walter Pidgeon, and others.

"At that time, I was at loose ends, out of college and undecided what to do next. My dad took me to visit the Senate in session and to have lunch in the Senate dining room with Sen. Kenneth Keating [R-NY]. I was mesmerized. After lunch and back at the hotel, I got teary-eyed telling my dad how exciting I found Washington and how I would love to work there. He suggested that I call Phyllis Laughlin who was my sorority sister and good friend at the University of Texas, Austin and see if she would be interested in moving to Washington with me."

Donna said the rest was "serendipity." When she called she learned that Phyllis had just accepted a job in the office of John Tower that morning. He was the newly-elected [junior] senator from Texas, and was recruiting his staff. Phyllis offered to see if there might be a place for Donna, too. Much to their delight, Phyllis was asked to come in for an interview with Tower's administrative assistant at 10 a.m. the following day. She got the job and was told, like Phyllis, to refresh her typing skills, take speed writing, and report for work after the Christmas holiday.

"So, that's how the adventure began," Donna recalled. "The day after Christmas we were on the road driving to D.C. We found an apartment at 2500 Q St., N.W., the very same one that John Kennedy [Sen. John F. Kennedy, D-Mass.] shared with 'Scoop' Jackson [Sen. Henry M. Jackson, D-Wash.]. Not very imposing for two such famous bachelors.

"Sen. Tower was a good man with a great sense of humor. I should also mention that he was a graduate of the London School of Economics, and had a fine mind. You may have heard rumors of womanizing. All I can say is that I was pretty cute and he never made a pass at me. He was quite short and, at 5'2", I was the only person in the office who was shorter than him in my high heels."

A month later Donna received an introduction to sexual politics when she was invited to an annual party for Supreme Court justices hosted by her stepmother's friend, famed hostess Gwen Cafritz. Coincidentally, the party took place on Feb. 20, 1962, the day that John Glenn orbited the earth.

"I was standing in front of a TV when a very attractive older man (I was in my mid-20s, and he was nearly 20 years older) joined me. He [name withheld] chatted for awhile, asked where I worked, and walked off. As he walked away, I heard someone say, 'It's nice to see you, Congressman.' I didn't think anymore about it at the time.

"On Wednesday of the following week, I answered the phone at work to his voice. He said his name and reminded me where we met and asked me to join him for dinner that night at a restaurant in Georgetown. Fortunately, caution caused me to suggest that I meet him. He agreed because he said that he would be coming from a golf game at the Congressional Country Club.

"At dinner I learned that he was indeed a member of Congress from Tennessee. He went on in later years to become the junior senator to Albert Gore [Sen. Albert Gore, Sr., D-Tenn.]. We were halfway through our steaks when he said to me, 'I'm not being quite fair to you. I met your dad and stepmother at a party at the Petroleum Club in Houston when my wife and I were there on a visit.' I had never mentioned my dad or stepmother to him.

"'Your wife?!' I said. I guess I was just very naive. He explained that she ran his office back home in Tennessee and they had a very open marriage. Fortunately, I had enjoyed most of a delicious steak, so I excused myself and left.

"I was stunned! Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. Of course, I soon learned that my story was not too unusual in D.C. and the rumors about Kennedy put my little story to shame."

Donna shared other events for the Washington Secretaries History Project including participating in a "sit in" at the Nighthawk Restaurant while a senior at the University of Texas, Austin in 1961. Two years later, on August 28, 1963, Donna elbowed her way through the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial to get a glimpse of Reverend Martin Luther King delivering his "I Have A Dream" speech. In an upcoming post, she'll also describe the atmosphere in the Old Senate Office Building on Nov. 22, 1963 when she returned from lunch and was told by a guard that President Kennedy had just been assassinated.

"Ex-secretaries of Washington, dig out your old steno pads and dish!"

Last Thursday, April 28, John Kelly of The Washington Post wrote a column about the launch of the Washington Secretaries History Project.

I was delighted with the response to the article from old colleagues, some of whom wished to remain anonymous, children of women who participated in the "Government Girls Project" and former Washington Post editor Sara Fitzgerald. Sara is about to publish a biography of Elly Peterson. Elly worked as a secretary in the Michigan Republican Party headquarters before going on to serve two stints as assistant chairman of the Republican National Committee in Washington, D.C.: 1963-64 and 1969-70 (when I was there). If you'd like to learn more about Elly's career in politics, visit Sara's blog titled, "What Would Elly Think?"