| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Jennifer Sims Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by Jane Scherr |
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Jennifer, welcome to Berkeley.
Thank you, I'm glad to be here.
Where were you born and raised?
I was born in Washington, D.C., and shortly after that, my family moved to Greenwich, Connecticut, where I was raised until my college years.
Looking back, how do you think your parents shaped your character?
My parents had a tremendous impact on my character. They have been married now for sixty years, and they raised four children. The best way to encapsulate the impact of my parents on my way of looking at the world, and also the specific question of character, is that my mother, who raised all four of us, went back to work when I was in college, and she became eventually the first woman mayor of Greenwich, Connecticut. In Greenwich, that's called the position of "first selectman." [She was] the first Democrat in seventy-five years to be elected. I'm convinced she was elected because of her ability to listen, her balanced, non-dogmatic viewpoint, and her open-mindedness.
But the most important image I have of her was on election night -- a huge upset, and the Democrat Party had convened en masse in the Democratic headquarters, and they came to my mother and said, "It's time to march down Main Street and take City Hall." And my mother, who was riding high at that moment -- there were balloons and applause -- said, "No, that would not be the gracious thing to do." And she turned to me, because I was standing right next to her, and she said, "Remember this, Jennifer, always with grace." And that was very profound. It had a huge impact on me. I tried to remember that humility and grace during my time in government, when I was given more and more responsibility. It's a hard thing to do, because to be effective in Washington you must be forceful at times, you have to stand your ground at times. I'd like to think that at least 99 percent of the time I was able to remember my mother's words.
What about your father?
My father had had a long and productive career in higher education. He was vice president of the College Entrance Examination Board, and he also worked for a while for the State Department, and then was involved in testifying during the McCarthy period. That experience so rattled him and upset him that he moved his family up to the New York area, and went into international education instead of pursuing a career in Washington, D.C. There were other reasons for that, but that had a profound impact on him.
He was the Rock of Gibraltar for our family during a lot of ups and downs, including the loss of my sister at a very young age. When my mother sailed high after his retirement -- he retired and she hit her career peak -- he went from being a very high-flying professional himself to being, I don't like the term "house husband," but he was supportive, he was cooking dinner, he was helping her in every way. The flexibility, the sense of who he was, the core inner strength -- he took a lot of flak from the press for being sort of the man behind the powerful woman in certain circumstances, and his grace and his strength and flexibility, as well as his intelligence, was important.
So was there a lot of conversation around the dinner table about politics and world affairs?
Yes, there was. Both my parents engaged all of us children in dinner conversations about world events. I remember from a very young age being impressed with the range of knowledge that both my parents had and expected us to have. Dinner was at a set time every night. My father came home on the train from New York City at a set time. We were all expected to be at the dinner table.
I remember for many, many years being principally a listener, because I was a dancer through my high school years, and thinking I was going to be a professional dancer. While I listened a lot, I didn't engage a lot, nor did I think that this was going to be my future. But as it turned out, I went to college. Got radicalized while I was in college. Ended up being very involved in the politics surrounding the Vietnam War, very interested and concerned about it, and went into government -- left my dancing career and went into government as a result. At that period of time, interestingly enough, my father -- and I think this was unusual for most students at Oberlin -- my father was more radical on the war than I was. He was considered very, very, left wing at the time, and I was sort of center-left. So listening to my father's points of view, and then trying to listen to other points of view, I recognized the passion with which my father approached international politics. I have tried to retain some of that passion, while also retaining the open-mindedness that had been a keystone of those dinner conversations that we had.
How were you affected by the 1960s? When you began your career in government, was the feeling that you would change things
One of the big effects of the sixties and seventies on me was a belief in the importance of our institutions. Actually, the seventies were a jolting experience for those of us who lived through them. I went off to college in Oberlin a year after Kent State happened, and I saw democratic politics bring to an end to an involvement overseas, that mass of public opinion was critical. I realized the importance of our institutions and the integrity of our institutions. Same for Watergate; Watergate had that impact on me as well.
So I came into government, actually, with less of a sense of "I'm going to change the way business is done," and much more with an awe of our institutions. I was sitting on the Senate floor during the vote to authorize the use of force against Saddam Hussein, and I will never, ever forget that feeling of honor and privilege to be there at that historic moment. That still is with me, after ten years of government, the respect for the taxpayer and the important responsibility of being in institutions accountable to the people. In my last job, it used to be one of the mantras in our office. We were dealing with intelligence, resources and planning, and I tried to convey to all the staff at all times, "Remember, your bosses are the taxpayers. We must remember that first and foremost." That is the legacy of the Vietnam period for me, anyway.
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