Hamilton Jordan Made Private Battles Public
Carter Strategist, Cancer Survivor Lived 'There's No Such Thing as a Bad Day' Motto
By RICK KLEIN
May 21, 2008—
Hamilton Jordan, the architect of Jimmy Carter's presidency, leaves behind a towering political legacy that may be exceeded by contributions to a field far from the campaign arena: cancer research.
Jordan, who died Tuesday at age 63, made his private medical battles public with the same passion he brought to the Carter White House.
Battling Cancer, Saving Lives
Over the course of his last 22 years, while fighting lymphoma, then melanoma and then prostate cancer, he helped countless others fight and cope with their diseases -- bringing the analytical approach that vaulted a peanut farmer to the White House to help find new ways of defeating cancer.
"Hamilton really cared about people, and he was truly -- it's hard to say this about somebody in politics -- but he really meant it when he paid attention to you," Gerald Rafshoon, a longtime friend who served alongside Jordan in the Carter White House, said in an interview.
"He saved a lot of lives -- that's a pretty good legacy," Rafshoon said.
As a colorful, sometimes outspoken political operative, Jordan engineered Carter's 1976 White House run and became the president's chief of staff at age 34.
He never really left politics. He ran for a Senate seat in 1986 and was a top strategist for the 1992 Ross Perot campaign; just this year he was a leading voice in the Unity '08 push for a bipartisan presidential ticket. But he made his main post-White House mark in the world of medicine, as a renowned and animated anti-cancer voice.
With his wife, Dorothy, he founded Camp Sunshine, a summer camp for kids with cancer that has grown to serve more than 700 families a year in Georgia. Largely outside the national spotlight, he lobbied for billions of dollars in federal and state cancer research -- and freely dispensed volumes of advice to all who sought him out, and many whom he sought out.
"There was no better spokesperson for us nationally," said Vicki Riedel, a board member of Camp Sunshine, who first met Jordan in the early 1990s, when her daughter was diagnosed with leukemia.
Riedel recalls Jordan emceeing the camp's annual talent shows -- an upbeat cancer survivor who was a constant symbol of optimism to the children he served.
"They loved him as just a big teddy bear -- a dad. That's how I treasure him," she said.
No Such Thing as a Bad Day
Jordan's mantra was embodied in the title of his best-selling 2000 book, "No Such Thing as a Bad Day," autographed copies of which he would hand out to newly diagnosed cancer patients.
The title reflects the optimistic, active approach he considered critical to fighting a deadly disease, he explained in an interview with the Web site WebMD.
"When you have a diagnosis of cancer, or any serious illness, your choices are basically to be passive, and kind of accept whatever is offered you, or to be active and to learn about your disease, and understand your options, and be an active partner with your doctor," Jordan explained. "That's the course I took with all three of my cancers."
Rafshoon said Jordan considered medical school before pursuing a career in his other love -- politics. At the White House, he was a lively foil to a sometimes dry president, the boy genius who developed the blueprint for Carter's rise to the presidency, then became a key behind-the-scenes voice.
In 1985, he got his first cancer diagnosis: non-Hodgkins lymphoma, at the time considered a far less treatable disease than it is today. Rafshoon said Jordan bribed an orderly at Emory University Medical School so he could sneak into the library and read all the medical texts he could find on cancer.
Approaching his battle with the disease as he would a campaign, he then pursued an experimental treatment in a clinical trial at the National Cancer Institute.
"He beat it in six months," Rafshoon recalled. "If you could strategize your way out of cancer, Hamilton would do that."
Scott Miller, a friend of Jordan's for more than 25 years, remembered the day when his wife was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma -- the same kind of cancer Jordan survived.
"He was the first person to our house, the first person with a hug -- and had a thousand suggestions of what to do," said Miller, a political and corporate strategist who worked on the Perot campaign with Jordan. "He's probably done that three or four times a day over the last 20 years. It was great advice, and unyielding support."
Rafshoon said he was always struck by the fact that Jordan decided to leave Washington at the end of the Carter administration, rather than cash out on the contacts he'd made.
"The thing that distinguishes Hamilton from those in the arena is he didn't stick around," he said.
Though he never strayed far from politics, his impact will long be remembered in countless other ways, Riedel said.
"He gave hope every day -- never quitting. He was just a beacon of hope," she said.