Edwin Edwards: Governor of Louisiana »

My first impressions of Governor Edwin Edwards were contradictions. I didn’t like him but I loved being around him. He stood for so much of what I was against, arrogance, gambling, womanizing, shady dealing, an undercurrent of ruthlessness that seems to define politics at a high level. I know now that in a world of far more needs than solutions, short term politics is a thankless job with few winners. I had to look long term, however, to understand the riddle of Edwin Edwards, back across fifty some odd years of public service. When former Louisiana Secretary of State, Insurance Commissioner and Senator Jim Brown called me in 2004 to suggest I consider writing Edwin Edwards’ biography, I scoffed, “I really don’t care to.” Then it hit me that I, too, was arrogant and remembered that Governor Edwards usually treated me kindly from the day I met him in 1973. A freshman at Northeast Louisiana University (now University of Louisiana at Monroe), I was assigned to photograph the new governor and his wife, First Lady Elaine Edwards, at the dedication of the Anna Gray Noe Alumni Center. I was astounded how much taller I was than he, yet when he walked into a room, there was no doubt who was in charge. He was funny, too, peeling off jokes one after another. Chief photographer Billy Heckford and I had so much fun we shadowed the couple through that night’s football game, shooting hundreds of photos we would never use. As a 1970s cub reporter for KNOE Television in Monroe, I usually interviewed the Governor on the run with a CP-16 film camera on my right shoulder and a microphone in my left hand. He answered questions I didn’t ask while I fumbled with framing and audio levels. Then he would turn to aides and associates and say, “This is what we need to do in state government. Leo is the most efficient reporter I know.” The love fest didn’t last long. I personally liked Governor Dave Treen, methodical and lethargic as he was, and I defended his honor when Edwards wisecracked, “Dave Treen is so slow it takes him an hour-and-a-half to watch 60 Minutes.” Treen was a “good man.” He was, however, an overly cautious administrator trampled beneath the sheer volume of state business. Edwin Edwards flew at high speeds above the minutiae, deftly delegating to qualified staffers while maintaining mental control. But if he was so smart, so brilliant, so intelligent,

He could have been President. Instead, Edwin Edwards controlled the exotic state of Huey Long far longer than Huey with far more finesse. He barreled down the same populist path, sticking up for the little guy, making Big Oil pay while expanding industry, and appointing minorities and women faster than any governor in the union. He demanded the Nixon Administration pay fair market value for American oil instead of their "price freeze" at half and, in the 1970s, screamed that allowing the East and West Coasts to refuse exploration would enslave Americans to OPEC. President Carter threatened to send in the Marines when Governor Edwards slowed oil transfers in the state's pipelines to spotlight Louisiana's environmental sacrifice. For his trouble, Edwards became continuously investigated by the federal government.

Branded a crook, profiled three times by 60 Minutes, slammed in East Coast newspapers, Edwards embraced a maverick, gambling, womanizing reputation with comedic relish. But one day the laughter ran out. Was he a crook? Or did the feds seek to silence him? Here is an unvarnished, inside truth about American politics, the media, the punsters, campaign hacks, federal agents and the fickle public. This will answer many questions about why the system is so screwed up and why the Status Quo remains the status quo.